Pan-Libertarian Leftisms
Democratic Socialism Nicos Poulantzas tried to envision how the left could simultaneously champion rank-and-file democracy at a distance from the state and push for radical transformation from within it. Working within the state would aim to produce “breaks” that would polarize the highly conflictual state apparatuses toward the working class, assisted by external pressure from rank-and-file organizations. “It is not simply a matter of entering state institutions in order to use their characteristic levers for a good purpose,” Poulantzas wrote. “In addition struggle must always express itself in the development of popular movements, the mushrooming of democratic organs at the base, and the rise of centers of self-management.” Anarcho-Communism Ricardo Flores Magón’s concept of revolution was based on the idea that Mexican workers on both sides of the border had the potential to be the instruments of transformation through their own self-activity. By the outbreak of the Mexican revol