The impact of Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" on Noam Chomsky's path to anarchism

"I’m pretty sure he arrived in Spain without any grand ideas of being part of a revolution, and quite simply wanted to fight against fascists."

He was a socialist before going to spain, but his idea was to go there as a journalist. But once there, he felt he had to activly take arms to fight fascism. (and like others mentioned, he joined not a anarchist, but a socialist militia, but not one under sowjet control, so he later experienced first hand, how the sowjets dealt with competition, which lead to "animal farm" and 1984)

But he did also met many anarchists and the differences between anarchists and socialist militias were rather blurry for the people in the trenches anyway.

What I really like about Orwell, as opposed to the usual glorifying propaganda - he just wrote down what he saw. The good and the bad. He did not close his eyes to the ugly side of the revolution (trash everywhere for example)

To me, the book was mostly an eyewitness account. Orwell himself remarks on the absurd amount of factions and how bizarre things were after returning from the front. I agree with your take that he went in quite blind, but you can feel that he has experience as a journalist. I was most impressed by his descriptions of small acts of humanity in a hopelessly complex conflict.

He however later explicitly called for revolution, and set out an explicit program for how he believed a revolution in England needed to happen, so whether or not it misrepresents his views at the time of Homage to Catalonia, he not only supported revolution but explicitly argued it was necessary towards the end of his life.

Which also leads to him making a fundamentally wrong analysis of the situation.

Now before you all yell at me, let me explain where I am coming from.

One of the great tragedies regarding the rise of fascism in Germany is that the left-wing forces did not manage to unite in time to stop it. Communists and social democrats preferred to fight each other instead. They did work together in the resistance later but then it was way too late.

This is fundamental for understanding the behavior of the communists in the Spanish Civil War. Simplified, they switched strategies from immediate revolution to focusing on fighting fascism first.

The Anarchist and other left-wing radicals like the POUM on the other hand wanted to do a revolution WHILE the republic was fighting for survival against fascism.

Do I need to explain why such a strategy was madness? They were destabilizing the country while not really contributing that much militarily. In a war you need a united leadership, you need clear hierarchies, that is how you win. You don't win with romanticism.

So what was to be done? Yes, the Republic had to get rid of these radicals.

I know people like Orwell's interpretation of history because it fits with their anti-communist biases. Sure you can say the communists had plans for after the war and you might not agree with those plans if you are not very fond of communism, that is fair. But saying the Anarchists and other left-wing radicals where the good ones, makes no sense. At least the communists did focus on fighting fascism.

It's been too long since I've read Homage to Catalonia as well, and I agree with your understanding.

However, he did have quite complex views after learning more.

> This line from the article seems to misrepresent Orwell...He makes it clear in his book that he initially had little understanding of the differences in ideology among the various left-wing groups, and chose to join the anarchists rather arbitrarily.

The one misrepresenting Orwell is yourself, he joined the communist POUM, not the anarchists.

In fact, his wider body of work ends up prefiguring a politics that's primarily anti-communist, not leftist.

The pretense (official embargo, etc.) is gone these days, and the US openly supports repressive regimes and war criminal leaders as long as the money can keep flowing.

Things changed a lot since the predicted "End of History" and I struggle to understand what exactly led us here...

I disagree. Anarcho-Syndicalism is a type of Anarchism that would be reasonable. There are other types that are also reasonable, and Chomsky is just as much for them.

The specifics of how workers in a capitalist society gain control of the economy, and replace it with democracy, are dependent on the culture, and what is possible.

Anarcho-Syndicalism is the greatest achievement in Anarchism in Spain though, so perhaps it is the most reasonable of the solutions, I'm only indicating Syndicalism is a possible way, amongst possible ways.

So you have a equal circle of many people. And the need for fast action, like it often can happen in real life.

Well, let's just say I have been part of many circles - but fast action was never the result of them, unless the circle was really, really small.

And even if there is no need for fast action - debating everything with everyone all the time for every decision - is somewhat timeconsuming and draining.

As a Spaniard myself it is shocking how many people believe the propaganda of being "Republic" vs fascism. If you consider Franco fascist because they were supported by Hitler, you should consider the other side communist for being supported by Stalin.

Because that is exactly what the "Republic" wanted in Spain, the dictatorship of the proletarian.

I think 1984 and Animal Farm have to be at the top of the list, in that order.

I agree Down and Out in Paris and London follows close behind, and the best of his essays come next.

I think Homage to Catalonia is not a great book, but valuable for the autobiographical insight about Orwell, and how it informed him to write those other, better works.

I would also add that Coming Up For Air is delightful and underrated. Try the audio book. Any middle-aged man can appreciate the quiet understated honesty.

The issue is in the discourse that's leveled against the average person. Its not scientific or data centric, its tribalistic and designed to appeal to emotion over rational logic. As you note, there are smart people who can take all the existing information about the world, read up on political theories and make their own conclusions from available evidence and data. These rationalists are not most people, unfortunately.

Others don't learn such critical thinking and research skills. These people act very much like humans have acted for a millennia, appealing to their trusted shaman or chief as the source of truth rather than a careful, individual assessment of the available evidence. They think in terms of emotion.

Then there is a third group of people who are aware of both groups of people. They use the rational people to research actionable data, and use the science of propaganda to convince the emotional masses to support whatever is useful for this third group in terms of amassing more resources, or more power to later amass more resources.

I'm not sure how we get out of this rut as a species to be honest. As the famous quote goes, you can't rationalize someone out of a perspective they didn't rationalize themselves into.

>leadership that present anarchist

You might see the conflict here in the wording...

A successful meme is one that causes itself to be propagated. For example most religions have a tenant of "have kids, teach those kids your religion" and "convert others to your religion". Leadership in a group that says get rid of leadership is never going to be as successful as a group that attempts to acquire more power. Or to say different, it's success measure would be in destroying itself.

The name is basically irrelevant. There are other names used for it, like Libertarian Socialism. The fact it's a different name, hasn't increased the relevancy.

Libertarian Socialism and/or Anarchism, is a structure of ideas that gets destroyed by every government if it ever gains relevance, as occurred with Spain, as the article and Homage to Catalonia are about.

We don't need names to communicate the issue. It's really simple. If authority is unjustified, it should be dismantled.

And what does that mean in practice? That corporations are unaccountable privately owned Dictatorships, and workers should be in control of them.

That renting yourself to a dictatorship is not freedom, and control of operations and decision making should be in the hands of those who do the work.

IMO the fundamental difficulty is that anarchism is framed in terms of a negative - the absence of hierarchy. This makes it a fantastic foundation for critiquing existing (power) structures on their own merits in isolation. But that foundation makes proposing new structures a secondary concern. So then you get the various schools, each trying to describe how they themselves think society should be positively structured, while awkwardly trying to avoid the fact they're proposing new structure, and all the ways that can (and likely will) go wrong.

The problem gets especially poignant when trying to push existing society in one of these specific directions, where undermining some power structures can cause others to fill the vacuum. You'll also find yourself in opposition to other groups pushing for their own freedom, but focused on a different part of the existing power structure that makes the most sense for them to start with.

My own synthesis is something along the lines of anarchism without adjectives where we need to be against immediate oppression of individuals by power structures, but also realizing that scaling any such movements will inevitably spawn their own oppressive hierarchies, likely aimed at people different than us. Ultimately I think the larger societal changes in individual freedom are created by new technologies, each of which can either support or oppress individual freedom.

There are lots of different flavors of anarchy, and anarchists can't agree on them. Or--and I think this might be quoting or paraphrasing someone: there are as many different kinds of anarchy as there are anarchists. And sometimes their reactions to each other are very strongly negative, like "That's not really anarchy, that's just preserving capitalism via a last-ditch attempt!"

Also I think in the US at least, religion plays into it. God over humanity is conceptually the ultimate hierarchy model that Christians buy into. So it seems like Christians often don't have as much issue with embracing the idea of one person being over another person as a reflection of that model. This seems a little bit funny given how anarchic Jesus was, but he never said, "Yo, check it out, I am literally an anarchist and you should be too," and so they seem to have missed that.

Takes more than philosophical grounding to accrue political power. Liberalism has fundamental contradictions that Communism or Fascism dosen't, yet it is the former that is the dominant ideology today.

Same with thing with "capitalism" or the greater financial system, most would have negative reaction to such words, yet they are one of the few systems where their ideas are fully realized in praxis onto reality.

Syndicalist

While there are many good answers to your question, here is mine, trying to answer as generic as possible:

Anarchy doesn't mean "everybody for themselves" in a chaotic sense. It advocates for the absence of a formal, hierarchical government, aiming for self-managed societies based on voluntary, cooperative institutions.

Here are key points:

1. Mutual Aid: Anarchists believe in mutual aid and voluntary cooperation rather than competition and individualism.

2. Horizontal Structures: They support horizontal organization without hierarchies, promoting collective decision-making.

3. Community Defense: Anarchist communities often organize collective defense mechanisms to protect individuals from oppression.

The concern about groups oppressing individuals is valid, but anarchists argue that decentralized, community-based approaches can mitigate this better than centralized power structures, which often lead to greater systemic oppression.

Anarchism is explicitly not about everyone for themselves

Pierre Prudhon, who was basically the first anarchist wrote about all of our social obligations in all of his works - read chapter 4 of “what is property” to see what this looks like applied to interrelaional labor exchange

Further, Adam Smith, who you could also argue was also an early anarchist wrote in the theory of moral sentiments about the same thing

similarly for Emma Goldman similarly for Kropotkin etc..

So there is a fundamental lack of understanding about what anarchist philosophy actually is, it would seem, that prevents an actual discussion about it

Its much closer to libertarianism. In fact, many of the hard core libertarians are more accurately described as anarchists. Realistically if we use the (poor) political compass, "anarchy" is everything below the center line. That's the vertical axis: anarchy-authority.

There's also a good discussion from Moxie Marlinspike (creator of Signal)[0]. He discusses some of the things you're asking and I think this can answer better than a comment.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXbjdTZjBQQ

The "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry" blog (frequently posted on HackerNews) has an interesting series on how non-state societies organize to achieve collective action, like raising an army. The series focuses on the Celtic people in contrast to the Romans.

I do find it quite interesting how this particular implementation of an agrarian non-state society has very different outcomes than typically envisioned by anarchist theorists, particularly in regards to power/wealth/influence concentration, the emergence of social hierarchy, warlords, and the poor living conditions experienced by those at the bottom.

https://acoup.blog/2024/06/07/collections-how-to-raise-a-tri...

A bunch of people are trying to explain philosophy here, but you have hit the nail on the head. Anarchy very quickly turns into warlords. Even when described philosophically in other comments all I can see is feudal and tribal structures with never-ending conflicts (or the republican equivalent, like the Italian city-states in the 1400-1500s).

> Group formation seems to be natural way humans organize up to a state level.

Not quite. There have been many alternatives to state societies in history, so states are far from the only way to organize even largish society.

That said, state societies have spontaneously arisen at least 6 times and perhaps a dozen times. And the rise of states tends to either motivate neighboring polities to form states in response or pretty inevitably get extinguished by the states. Given the frequency of spontaneous reinvention of states, and the seeming inevitability of their expansion, even if states are not the only way to organize large polities, they do seem to a local if not global maximum.

> So everybody for themselves, ok.

This has nothing to do with anarchism.

Anarchism is simply organizing society to have as little hierarchy as possible.

> So everybody for themselves, ok.

Not really. Anarchism is a historically leftist movement. It's about rejecting hierarchy and coercion, not necessarily rejecting all notions of social duty, shared fate, cooperation, human care and support, etc.

Anarchism means no unearned hierarchy, it doesn't mean no cooperation. It means no kings, it doesn't mean no leaders.

Everybody for themselves would be a demand that a king would make. Normal people cooperate.

Anarchism has nothing to do with everybody for themselves, so that would be the first part of not understanding it.

Anarchism is dependent on group organization.

Don't be vague, what about his comments on Covid vaccines was statist? As far as I know, he only called for social shunning of the unvaccinated, not state action.

In fact, in this interview, he declares opposition to a vaccine mandate, and doesn't even call for social shunning - he instead suggests that the unvaccinated should take it upon themselves to self-isolate. https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/noam-chomsky-calls-for...

It's my opinion that his old age, combined with the fact that he was always surrounded by optimistic young people, activists, and extremely wealthy people who respected his critiques of power, started distorting his views on contemporary issues. I don't think that it reflects badly on him, being out of touch is a proof of his extreme success; it's inevitable that your success forms its own bubble.

Specifically, I don't think he considered the degree to which people in power would lie about what they knew about the actual characteristics of the disease to such an extent, which means that he had fallen out of touch with his own work.

edit: Covid being as weak as it was was just luck. The next disease could be almost the same, let's say like MERS with a possible 35% fatality rate, but with a long asymptomatic incubation time during which people are at their most infectious. If that happens, we'll still have to grapple with the questions that Chomsky dared to give answers to.

The brighter the light the darker the surrounding darkness. And Chomsky's light is so very bright.

Chomsky, as did everyone during COVID, revealed his true colors and he certainly did not live up to his own rhetoric over the years.