Yesterday we were pleased to share the news that ISIS had been driven out of Kobane by the
YPG/J. As we've provided news updates we've sometimes had commentators questions whether
what is happening in Rojava is a real revolution. Below in an opinion piece Andrew
discusses one aspect of such questions, the tendency to reduce the measure of revolution
to the introduction of a communist economy. We'd appreciate your input, information,
corrections and even grand theories. ---- Generally critiques of the Rojava revolution
from the left come in two forms. The more standard one focuses on the role of the PKK and
dismisses the revolution in totality on the basis of the PKKs past record. This is
discussed further at http://anarchism.pageabode.com/?/resources-rojava-revolutio?
The second is much rarer and essentially comes from a set of fringe Marxist ideas that
have some influence with some anarchists. They insist that to be a 'real' revolution the
wages system and market have to be abolished and Full communism introduced. The point
being that it is not enough that this is a goal to be worked towards, it must already have
happened. Advocates of such a position tend to see gender liberation as an irrelevant
distraction, no more than a nice add on for a 'real' revolution. And their productivistist
bias means that environmental concerns are no more than a tool to critique capitalism.
The point to start with that is to understand that you can't simply abolish wages, you
have to instead remove the need for wages. Otherwise you just end up with a secondary
underground market where the real economic activity goes on. Historically even draconian
states such as under Lenin or Stalin have proved unable to abolish such activity despite
jailings and executions.
Can we say either that the abolition of wage labour has happened or that it is the goal?
Briefly no, but read on ...
The economic model being pursued is complicated by the deliberate under development of the
region under Assad which means there were not even any cement factories or grain mills,
the main product cash economy product apart form oil being wheat. This means there isn't
much of a classical working class in the old school marxist factory sense or indeed
factories to seize. The economy is a mix of agriculture, small machine shops and oil
extraction along with state run electricity, phones and other services.
That makes the sort of box ticking such critics suggest a poor fit to the actual
conditions . Not an impossibility but the same forces for collectivisation don't exist as
in a factory setting so it would required a deep mass ideological commitment, as indeed
was present in some villages in rural Spain during the revolution there where both wages
and individual ownership were abolished. If you've seen the film Land & Freedom you are
familiar with how that happened in some places.
So far as I understand economic change in Rojava is happening at the level of
1. setting up co-ops (with agricultural ones possibly using land abandoned by regime
supporters).
2. providing certain necessities free (so partial filling of the requirement for wage
abolition), but from the Point of View of consumption rather than production.
3. a certain amount of war communism - again a form of wage abolition but not necessarily
intended to be long term. In Kobane under siege food was reported by BBC journalists as
being freely available to all.
I have seen references to some co-ops operating on a 'according to need' basis, this
appears to translate in reality into a family wage, again similar to much of revolutionary
Spain so the take home wage is proportional to the number of people dependent on the wage.
If this is widespread it is indeed a significant step towards a real abolition of wages.
How real this is and where it will develop to is the question that is currently being
answered in practise. It's why I've gathered together all the information to be found at
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/?/resources-rojava-revolutio? and am seeking further
concrete information.
A note on image: Such critics tend to get very annoyed by any compassion with the
anarchist revolution in Spain, down to expressing outrage even a mimes pointing out the
home made armoured vehicles look quite similar. On the other hand some of the imagery
coming from the revolution and its supporters delibretley references revolutionary Spain.
I saw this particular image posted yesterday, an appeal to a supposed common anti-facism
expressed in the defences of Madrid, Stalingrad and Kobane.
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