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Image credit: Andrej Grubacic

Works by Andrej Grubačić

Associated Works

Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century (2008) — Contributor — 76 copies
Yugoslavia: Peace, War, and Dissolution (2018) — some editions — 23 copies

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I wanted to like this book so much, but things were damned from the very first page: there is a paragraph-long blurb by one of the most pretentious brats I have ever had the displeasure of sharing organizing space with. I seethed when I saw it and I wrinkled my nose when I read it. Anyone who has this book and knows me in an organizing context will know which asshole I am talking about...

There were several things that I appreciated about the book. For one, opening my eyes to Liberation Theology and Oscar Romero. His theory of accompaniment is one that I had, without knowing, started down the road of adopting in my current studies to be a nurse. I could have come across this by merely reading Oscar Romero's letters themselves, and I plan on it. But before reading this book, I never knew to. Which brings me to another plus:

Staughton Lynd rattles off books that I am interested in reading. It's great! The book is almost an annotated reading list, many of which sound utterly fascinating, including Staughton Lynd's books. But can I really justify recommending this book? Or should I just be recommending the books that this book recommends?

In addition, Lynd's dismisses some ideas without engaging them in a serious way. His understanding of the abolition of whiteness is based on a vulgar definition, one that isn't actually linked to moving white people away from the benefits given to them by white supremacy, and instead is based on crass dismissal of white people. He then burns up the straw man by pointing to scant historical anecdotes (which are quite inspirational) of the white working class working with the black working class together, when it suited their mutual interest. Unfortunately, he doesn't engage how often white working class movements refuse to engage with the black working class because their interests are meted out differently by a capitalist system that wishes to divide and conquer them. White abolition exists to undermine the difference between the working class' divergent interests based on race, not to dismiss white people offhand.

Staughton Lynd also extols too hard the virtues of himself working a professional class job as a lawyer that helps the working class navigate through the capitalist system as a basis for accompaniment. Lawyers and laws may be needed as a temporary fix to stave off the worst excesses of capitalism, but as a hero of mine once said, "The Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house." Or, as another hero more forebodingly said, "Tyrants die from stab wounds, not articles of the legal code." Sure, you can buy your time with these temporary fixes, but the law exists to serve capital, and these temporary fixes will be rolled back at the whim of the class of people who control the means of production. Staughton dismisses Critical Legal Theory for being too cynical, but he doesn't address the criticism of the theory: that people use law and higher concepts only as positioning for their client to win their case.

The stories of the two movements mentioned in the title (the Industrial Workers of the World and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation) are stories I've already heard before, and more thoroughly elsewhere. Though I came away with some excitement about books I've never heard of before, I cannot think of a reason to go back to the book, now that I've finished it. I won't be quoting it, I won't be searching through the pages to reread favorite passages. I can't even say that I'd recommend it to many people, except as a sort of broad stroke survey of independent left movements in the US: all the right groups and people are mentioned, but none of this is gone into with any sort of satisfactory depth.

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magonistarevolt | 1 other review | Apr 24, 2020 |
Wobblies and Zapatistas is basically a long conversation between Grubacic and Lynd about building bridges between the best traditions within anarchism and Marxism written for modern militants, revolutionaries, and working people. It is a series of provocations, led by Grubacic as he asks Lynd probing questions about radical practice contemporarily and historically.

One particular theme of interest is the position of contemporary anarchists in regards to mass social movement work. Grubacic (24) writes that “the generation of new anarchists… must learn how to ’swim in the sea of the people’”. Lynd replies with recollections of the Left’s past, focusing at one point on the SDS and how sections would leave school and organize amongst poor populations. Lynd describes the approach as short lived, but offers his own concept for organizing with workers and the poor.

This concept, accompaniment, is a major theme in the book. It is used to describe the ways that radicals might organize alongside marginalized communities. The radical organizer accompanies the struggles of the marginalized like a string quartet might accompany a horn section’s lead. This “lead”, however, isn’t to suggest uncritical acceptance of the politics of marginalized populations. Rather, it asks of us to be honest and vocal about our disagreements without resorting to patronization.

This concept is similar to the idea of social insertion articulated in especifismo, a Latin American variant of anarchism. That is, anarchists should involve (socially insert) themselves in mass movements and actively argue our politics within them. Many anarchist events I’ve attended over the last decade or so have included workshops on bike repair, mushroom foraging, punk music, etc. with little attention paid to involvement in social movements and mass struggles. This missing piece in anarchist practice is also apparent in the ways that modern anarchists at times actively discourage working class organizing. Lynd and Grubacic argue for a radical milieu that involves itself in mass struggles and sees the positive contributions of working class people in fights for social justice, as well as reminding us that without a struggle for socialism-or worker’s self-management-we do not have a movement capable of talking about “justice” in holistic terms.

Other interesting items of discussion include conversations on direct action, dual power, “whiteness theory”, and behaving like comrades (something many of us could learn a lot about on the Left with our entrenched history of denunciations, sectarian squabbling, and our seeming inability to have diplomatic and principled disagreements). Throughout its pages, this book is about drawing those common threads together from the best of anarchism and Marxism. In a time of global economic depression, with factory and school occupations all over the world, as well as radical movements in as disparate places as Greece and Iran having pitched battles in the streets with the state, it is incumbent on us Leftists to work together. There is radical potential in the world right now-potential that need not be wasted over theoretical quibbles. This book is a good start in creating commonalities in practice along the radical Left-and at just the right historical juncture.

Reviewed by Deric Shannon
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PoliticalMediaReview | 1 other review | Aug 4, 2009 |

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