The Dialectics of Ambiguity: The Marxist Theory of History

After some years of study and consideration, I eventually concluded that [my previous] position was untenable. Rather than seeing the establishment of totalitarian, state capitalist (Communist) systems as the negation of Marxism, I came to believe that these societies in fact represented its fulfillment, although this had not been explicitly perceived, let alone advocated, by Marxist ideologists. As a result of reaching this conclusion, while still maintaining my opposition to capitalism and advocating the establishment of a liberated society, I became attracted to anarchism. I was particularly drawn to its hostility to the state and its opposition (in contrast to Marxism) to utilizing a state apparatus to achieve its goal. I was also intrigued by its understanding of hierarchy, which subsumes questions of class, national, racial and sexual oppression under a broader category without insisting on the primacy/determining nature of any one of them. Lastly, I was impressed by what I believe to be implied by anarchism (if not always consistently adhered to by anarchists themselves): a philosophical skepticism that repudiates the belief in the Truth of any one political/philosophical orthodoxy, in other words, its commitment to a form of ideological pluralism.