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version of Section H.
H.1 Have anarchists always opposed state socialism?
Yes. Anarchists have always argued that real socialism cannot be created using
a state. The basic core of the argument is simple. Socialism implies
equality, yet the state signifies inequality -- inequality in terms
of power. As we argued in section B.2, anarchists
consider one of the defining aspects of the state is its hierarchical
nature. In other words, the delegation of power into the hands
of a few. As such, it violates the core idea of socialism, namely
social equality. Those who make up the governing bodies in a state
have more power than those who have elected them.
Hence these comments by Malatesta and Hamon:
"It could be argued with much more reason that we are the most
logical and most complete socialists, since we demand for every
person not just his [or her] entire measure of the wealth of
society but also his [or her] portion of social power." [No Gods,
No Masters, vol. 2, p. 20]
It is with this perspective that anarchists have combated the idea
of state socialism and Marxism (although we should stress that libertarian
forms of Marxism, such as council communism, have strong similarities
to anarchism). This opposition to authoritarian socialism is a core
aspect of anarchism, an opposition which has been consistent and strong.
While it is sometimes argued by some on the right that libertarian
socialists and anarchists only started voicing their opposition to
Marxism and Leninism after the Soviet Union collapsed, the truth is
totally different. Anarchists, we must stress, have been opposed to
all forms of state socialism from the start (in the case of the Russian
Revolution, the anarchists were amongst the first on the left to be
suppressed by the Bolsheviks). Indeed, the history of Marxism is,
in part, a history of its struggles against anarchists just as the
history of anarchism is also, in part, a history of its struggle against
the various forms of Marxism and its offshoots. To state, or imply,
that anarchists have only lately opposed Marxism is false -- we have
been arguing against Marxism since the start.
While both Stirner and Proudhon wrote many pages against the evils
and contradictions of state socialism, anarchists have only really
been fighting the Marxist form of state socialism since Bakunin. This
is because, until the First International, Marx and Engels were relatively
unknown socialist thinkers. Proudhon was aware of Marx (they had meant
in France in the 1840s and had corresponded) but Marxism was unknown
in France during his life time and so Proudhon did not directly argue
against Marxism (he did, however, critique Louis Blanc and other French
state socialists). Similarly, when Stirner wrote The Ego and Its
Own Marxism did not exist bar a few works by Marx and Engels.
Indeed, it could be argued that Marxism finally took shape after Marx
had read Stirner's classic and produced his notoriously inaccurate
diatribe The German Ideology against him. However, like Proudhon,
Stirner attacked other state socialists and communists.
Before discussing Bakunin's opposition and critique of Marxism in
the next section, we should consider
the thoughts of Stirner and Proudhon on state socialism. These critiques
contain may important ideas and so are worth summarising. However,
it is worth noting that when both Stirner and Proudhon were writing
communist ideas were all authoritarian in nature. Libertarian communism
only developed after Bakunin's death in 1876. This means that when
Proudhon and Stirner were critiquing "communism" they were attacking
a specific form of communism, the form which subordinated the individual
to the community. Anarchist communists like Kropotkin and Malatesta
also opposed such kinds of "communism" (as Kropotkin put it, "before
and in 1848" communism "was put forward in such a shape as
to fully account for Proudhon's distrust as to its effect upon liberty.
The old idea of Communism was the idea of monastic communities . .
. The last vestiges of liberty and of individual energy would be destroyed,
if humanity ever had to go through such a communism." [Act
for Yourselves, p. 98]). Of course, it may be likely that Stirner
and Proudhon would have rejected libertarian communism as well, but
bear in mind that not all forms of "communism" are identical.
For Stirner, the key issue was that communism (or socialism), like
liberalism, looked to the "human" rather than the unique. "To
be looked upon as a mere part, part of society," asserted
Striner, "the individual cannot bear -- because he is more;
his uniqueness puts from it this limited conception." [The
Ego and Its Own, p. 265] As such, his protest against communism
was similar to his protest against liberalism (indeed, he drew attention
to their similarity by calling socialism and communism "social
liberalism").
Stirner was aware that capitalism was not the great defender of
freedom it was claimed to be by its supporters. "Restless acquisition,"
he argued, "does not let us take breath, take a claim enjoyment:
we do not get the comfort of our possessions." Communism, by the
"organisation of labour," can "bear its fruit" so that
"we come to an agreement about human labours, that they
may not, as under competition, claim all our time and toil." However,
communism "is silent" over "for whom is time to be gained."
He, in contrast, stresses that it is for the individual, "[t]o
take comfort in himself as the unique." [Op. Cit., pp.
268-9] Thus state socialism does not recognise that the purpose of
association is to free the individual and instead subjects the individual
to a new tyranny:
"it is not another State (such as a 'people's State') that
men aim at, but their union, uniting, this ever-fluid
uniting of everything standing -- A State exists even
without my co-operation . . . the independent establishment
of the State founds my lack of independence; its condition
as a 'natural growth,' its organism, demands that my nature
do not grow freely, but be cut to fit it." [Op. Cit., p. 224]
Similarly, Stirner argued that "Communism, by the abolition of
all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence
on another, to wit, on the generality or collectivity . . . [which
is] a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over
me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure that I experience
from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might
that it puts in the hands of the collectivity." [The Ego and
Its Own, p. 257]
History has definitely confirmed this. By nationalising property,
the various state socialist regimes turned the worker from a servant
of the capitalist into a serf of the state. In contrast, communist-anarchists
argue for free association and workers' self-management as the means
of ensuring that socialised property does not turn into the denial
of freedom rather than as a means of ensuring it. As such, Stirner's
attack on what Marx termed "vulgar communism" is still important
and finds echoes in communist-anarchist writings as well as the best
works of Marx and his more libertarian followers.
To show the difference between the "communism" Stirner attacked
and anarchist-communism, we can show that Kropotkin was not "silent"
on why organising production is essential. Like Stirner, he thought
that under libertarian communism the individual would "discharge
his [or her] task in the field, the factory, and so on, which he owes
to society as his contribution to the general production. And he will
employ the second half of his day, his week, or his year, to satisfy
his artistic or scientific needs, or his hobbies." [Conquest
of Bread, p. 111] In other words, he considered the whole point
of organising labour as the means of providing the individual the
time and resources required to express their individuality. As such,
anarcho-communism incorporates Stirner's legitimate concerns and arguments.
Similar arguments to Stirner's can be found in Proudhon's works
against the various schemes of state socialism that existing in France
in the middle of the nineteenth century. He particularly attacked
the ideas of Louis Blanc. Blanc, whose most famous book was Organisation
du Travail (Organisation of Work, published in 1840) argued
that social ills could be solved by means of government initiated
and financed reforms. More specifically, he argued that it was "necessary
to use the whole power of the state" to ensure the creation and
success of workers' associations (or "social workshops"). Since
that "which the proletarians lack to free themselves are the tools
of labour," the government "must furnish them" with these.
"The state," in short, "should place itself resolutely at
the head of industry." Capitalists would be encouraged to invest
money in these workshops, for which they would be guaranteed interest.
Such state-initiated workshops would soon force privately owned industry
to change itself into social workshops, so eliminating competition.
[quoted by K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise
of French Republican Socialism, p. 139]
Proudhon objected to this scheme on many levels. Firstly, he argued
that Blanc's scheme appealed "to the state for its silent partnership;
that is, he gets down on his knees before the capitalists and recognises
the sovereignty of monopoly." Given that Proudhon saw the state
as an instrument of the capitalist class, asking that state to abolish
capitalism was illogical and impossible. Moreover, by getting the
funds for the "social workshop" from capitalists, Blanc's scheme was
hardly undermining their power. "Capital and power," Proudhon
argued, "secondary organs of society, are always the gods whom
socialism adores; if capital and power did not exist, it would invent
them." [quoted by Vincent, Op. Cit., p. 157] He stressed
the authoritarian nature of Blanc's scheme:
"M. Blanc is never tired of appealing to authority, and
socialism loudly declares itself anarchistic; M. Blanc
places power above society, and socialism tends to
subordinate it to society; M. Blanc makes social life
descend from above, and socialism maintains that it
springs up and grows from below; M. Blanc runs after
politics, and socialism is in quest of science. No more
hypocrisy, let me say to M. Blanc: you desire neither
Catholicism nor monarchy nor nobility, but you must
have a God, a religion, a dictatorship, a censorship, a
hierarchy, distinctions, and ranks. For my part, I deny
your God, your authority, your sovereignty, your judicial
State, and all your representative mystifications."
[System of Economical Contradictions]
Equally, Proudhon opposed the "top-down" nature of Blanc's ideas.
Instead of reform from above, Proudhon stressed the need for working
class people to organise themselves for their own liberation. As he
put it, the "problem before the labouring classes . . . [is] not
in capturing, but in subduing both power and monopoly, -- that is,
in generating from the bowels of the people, from the depths of labour,
a greater authority, a more potent fact, which shall envelop capital
and the state and subjugate them." For, "to combat and reduce
power, to put it in its proper place in society, it is of no use to
change the holders of power or introduce some variation into its workings:
an agricultural and industrial combination must be found by means
of which power, today the ruler of society, shall become its slave."
[System of Economical Contradictions, p. 398 and p. 397] Proudhon
stressed in 1848 that "the proletariat must emancipate itself without
the help of the government." [quoted by George Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon: A Biography, p. 125] This was because the state "finds
itself inevitably enchained to capital and directed against the proletariat."
[Proudhon, System of Economical Contradictions, p. 399] In
addition, by guaranteeing interest payments, Blanc's scheme insured
the continued exploitation of labour by capital.
Proudhon, in contrast, argued for a two-way approach to undermining
capitalism from below: the creation of workers associations and the
organisation of credit. By creating mutual banks, which provided credit
at cost, workers could create associations to compete with capitalist
firms, drive them out of business and so eliminate exploitation once
and for all by workers' self-management. In this way, the working
class would emancipate itself from capitalism and build a socialist
society from below upwards by their own efforts and activities. Proudhon,
as Marxist Paul Thomas notes, "believed fervently . . . in the
salvation of working men, by their own efforts, through economic and
social action alone . . . Proudhon advocated, and to a considerable
extent inspired, the undercutting of this terrain [of the state] from
without by means of autonomous working-class associations." [Karl
Marx and the Anarchists, pp. 177-8]
Rejecting violent revolution (and, indeed, strikes as counter productive)
he argued for economic means to end economic exploitation and, as
such, he saw anarchism come about by reform via competition by workers'
associations displacing capitalist industry (unlike later anarchists,
who were revolutionaries that argued that capitalism cannot be reformed
away and so supported strikes and other forms of collective working
class direct action, struggle and combative organisation). Given that
the bulk of the French working class was artisans and peasants, such
an approach reflected the social context in which it was proposed.
It was this social context, this predominance of peasants and artisans
in French society which informed Proudhon's ideas. He never failed
to stress that association would be tyranny if imposed upon peasants
and artisans (rather, he thought that associations would be freely
embraced by these workers if they thought it was in their interests
to). He also stressed that state ownership of the means of production
was a danger to the liberty of the industrial worker and, moreover,
the continuation of capitalism with the state as the new boss. As
he put it in 1848, he "did not want to see the State confiscate
the mines, canals and railways; that would add to monarchy, and more
wage slavery. We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically
organised workers' associations . . . these associations [will] be
models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of
that vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common
cloth of the democratic social Republic." [No Gods, No Masters,
vol. 1, p. 62] Workers' associations would be applied for those industries
which objectively needed it (i.e. capitalist industry) and for those
other toilers who desired it.
Marx, of course, had replied to Proudhon's work System of Economic
Contradictions with his Poverty of Philosophy. Marx's work
aroused little interest when published, although Proudhon did carefully
read and annotate his copy of Marx's work, claiming it to be "a
libel" and a "tissue of abuse, calumny, falsification and plagiarism"
(he even called Marx "the tapeworm of Socialism.") [quoted
by George Woodcock, Proudhon, p. 102] Sadly, Proudhon did not
reply to Marx's work due to an acute family crisis and then the start
of the 1848 revolution in France. However, given his views of Louis
Blanc and other socialists who saw socialism being introduced after
the seizing of state power, he would hardly have been supportive of
Marx's ideas.
So while none of Proudhon's and Stirner's arguments are directly
aimed at Marxism, their ideas are applicable to much of mainstream
Marxism as this inherited many of the ideas of the state socialism
they attacked. Thus they both made forceful critiques of the socialist
and communist ideas that existed during their lives. Much of their
analysis was incorporated in the collectivist and communist ideas
of the anarchists that followed them (some directly, as from Proudhon,
some by co-incidence as Stirner's work was quickly forgotten and only
had an impact on the anarchist movement when George Henry MacKay rediscovered
it in the 1890s). This can be seen from the fact that Proudhon's ideas
on the management of production by workers' associations, opposition
to nationalisation as state-capitalism and the need for action from
below, by working people themselves, all found their place in communist-anarchism
and anarcho-syndicalism and in their critique of mainstream Marxism
(such as social democracy) and Leninism.
Echoes of these critiques can be found Bakunin's comments of 1868:
"I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty
and because for me humanity is unthinkable without
liberty. I am not a Communist, because Communism
concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit
of the State all the forces of society, because it
inevitably leads to the concentration of property in
the hands of the State . . . I want to see society
and collective or social property organised from below
upwards, by way of free associations, not from above
downwards, by means of any kind of authority whatsoever
. . . That is the sense in which I am a Collectivist
and not a Communist." [quoted by K.J. Kenafick,
Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx, pp. 67-8]
It is with Bakunin that Marxism and Anarchism came into direct conflict.
It was Bakunin who lead the struggle against Marx in the International
Workingmen's Association between 1868 and 1872. It was in these
exchanges that the two schools of socialism (the libertarian and the
authoritarian) clarified themselves. With Bakunin, the anarchist critique
of Marxism (and state socialism in general) starts to reach its finalised
form. Needless to say, this critique continued to develop after Bakunin's
death (particularly after the experiences of actual Marxist movements
and revolutions). However, much of this involved expanding upon many
of Bakunin's original predictions and analyses.
We will discuss Bakunin's critique in the
next section.
Bakunin and Marx famously clashed in the first International Working Men's
Association between 1868 and 1872. This conflict helped clarify
the anarchist opposition to the ideas of Marxism and can be considered
as the first major theoretical analysis and critique of Marxism by
anarchists. Later critiques followed, of course, particularly after
the degeneration of Social Democracy into reformism and the failure
of the Russian Revolution (both of which allowed the theoretical critiques
to be enriched by empirical evidence) but the Bakunin/Marx conflict
laid the ground for what came after. As such, an overview of Bakunin's
critique is essential.
First, however, we must stress that Marx and Bakunin had many similar
ideas. They both stressed the need for working people to organise
themselves to overthrow capitalism. They both argued for a socialist
revolution from below. They argued for collective ownership of the
means of production. They both constantly stressed that the emancipation
of the workers must be the task of the workers themselves. They differed,
of course, in exactly how these common points should be implemented
in practice. Both, moreover, had a tendency to misrepresent the opinions
of the other on certain issues (particularly as the struggle reached
its climax). Anarchists, unsurprisingly, argue Bakunin has been proved
right by history, so confirming the key aspects of his critique of
Marx.
So what was Bakunin's critique of Marxism? There are five main areas.
Firstly, there is the question of current activity (i.e. whether the
workers' movement should participate in "politics" and the nature
of revolutionary working class organisation). Secondly, there is the
issue of the form of the revolution (i.e. whether it should be a political
then an economic one, or whether it should be both at the same
time). Thirdly, there is the issue of the "dictatorship of the proletariat."
Fourthly, there is the question of whether political power can
be seized by the working class as a whole or whether it can only be
exercised by a small minority. Fifthly, there was the issue of whether
the revolution be centralised or decentralised in nature. We shall
discuss each in turn.
On the issue of current struggle, the differences between Marx and
Bakunin were clear. For Marx, the proletariat had to take part in
bourgeois elections as an organised political party. As the resolution
of the (gerrymandered) Hague Congress of First International put it,
"[i]n its struggle against the collective power of the possessing
classes the proletariat can act as a class only by constituting itself
a distinct political party, opposed to all the old parties formed
by the possessing classes . . . the conquest of political power becomes
the great duty of the proletariat." [Marx, Engels, Lenin, Anarchism
and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 85]
This political party must stand for elections and win votes. As
Marx argued in the preamble of the French Workers' Party, the workers
must turn the franchise "from a means of deception . . . into an
instrument of emancipation." This can be considered as part of
the process outlined in the Communist Manifesto, where it was
argued that the "immediate aim of the Communists is the same as
that of all the other proletarian parties," namely the "conquest
of political power by the proletariat," the "first step in
the revolution by the working class" being "to raise the proletariat
to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy."
Engels latter stressed (in 1895) that the "Communist Manifesto
had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy,
as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat"
and that German Social Democracy had showed workers of all countries
"how to make use of universal suffrage." [Marx and Engels
Reader, p. 566, p. 484, p. 490 and p. 565]
With this analysis in mind, Marxist influenced political parties
have consistently argued for and taken part in election campaigns,
seeking office as a means of spreading socialist ideas and as a means
of pursuing the socialist revolution. The Social Democratic parties
which were the first Marxist parties (and which developed under Marx
and Engels watchful eyes) saw revolution in terms of winning a majority
within Parliamentary elections and using this political power to abolish
capitalism (once this was done, the state would "wither away" as classes
would no longer exist). In effect, these parties aimed to reproduce
Marx's account of the forming of the Paris Commune on the level of
the national Parliament. Marx in his justly famous work The Civil
War in France reported how the Commune "was formed of the municipal
councillors" who had been "chosen by universal suffrage in
the various wards of the town" in the municipal elections held
on March 26th, 1871. This new Commune then issued a series of decrees
which reformed the existing state (for example, by suppressing the
standing army and replacing it with the armed people, and so on).
This Marx summarised by stating that "the working class cannot
simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for
its own purposed." [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p.
287 and p. 285]
As Engels put it in a latter letter, it was "simply a question
of showing that the victorious proletariat must first refashion the
old bureaucratic, administratively centralised state power before
it can use it for its own purposes." [quoted by David P. Perrin,
The Socialist Party of Great Britain, p. 64] He repeated this
elsewhere, arguing that "after the victory of the Proletariat,
the only organisation the victorious working class finds ready-made
for use is that of the State. It may require adaptation to the new
functions. But to destroy that at such a moment would mean to destroy
the only organism by means of which the victorious working class can
exert its newly conquered power, keep down its capitalist enemies
and carry out . . . economic revolution." [our emphasis, Marx,
Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 173]
Bakunin, in contrast, argued that while the communists "imagine
they can attain their goal by the development and organisation of
the political power of the working classes . . . aided by bourgeois
radicalism" anarchists "believe they can succeed only through
the development and organisation of the non-political or anti-political
power of the working classes." The Communists "believe it necessary
to organise the workers' forces in order to seize the political power
of the State," while anarchists "organise for the purpose of
destroying it." Bakunin saw this in terms of creating new organs
of working class power in opposition to the state, organised "from
the bottom up, by the free association or federation of workers, starting
with the associations, then going on to the communes, the region,
the nations, and, finally, culminating in a great international and
universal federation." [Bakunin on Anarchism, pp. 262-3
and p. 270] In other words, a system of workers' councils. As such,
he constantly argued for workers, peasants and artisans to organise
into unions and join the International Workingmen's Association,
so becoming "a real force . . . which knows what to do and is therefore
capable of guiding the revolution in the direction marked out by the
aspirations of the people: a serious international organisation of
workers' associations of all lands capable of replacing this departing
world of states." [Op. Cit., p. 174]
To Marx's argument that workers should organise politically, and
send their representations to Parliament, Bakunin argued that when
"the workers . . . send common workers . . . to Legislative Assemblies
. . . The worker-deputies, transplanted into a bourgeois environment,
into an atmosphere of purely bourgeois ideas, will in fact cease to
be workers and, becoming Statesmen, they will become bourgeois . .
. For men do not make their situations; on the contrary, men are made
by them." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 108]
As far as history goes, the experience of Social Democracy confirmed
Bakunin's analysis. A few years after Engels death in 1895, German
Social Democracy was racked by the "revisionism" debate. This debate
did not spring from the minds of a few leaders, isolated from the
movement, but rather expressed developments within the movement
itself. In effect, the revisionists wanted to adjust the party rhetoric
to what the party was actually doing and so the battle against the
revisionists basically represented a battle between what the party
said it was doing and its actual practice. As one of the most distinguished
historians of this period put it, the "distinction between the
contenders remained largely a subjective one, a difference of ideas
in the evaluation of reality rather than a difference in the realm
of action." [C. Schorske, German Social Democracy, p. 38]
Even Rosa Luxemburg (one of the fiercest critics of revisionism) acknowledged
in Reform or Revolution that it was "the final goal of socialism
[that] constitutes the only decisive factor distinguishing the social
democratic movement from bourgeois democracy and bourgeois radicalism."
[Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, p. 36] As such, the Marxist critics
of "revisionism" failed to place the growth in revisionist ideas in
the tactics being used, instead seeing it in terms of a problem in
ideas. By the start of the First World War, the Social Democrats had
become so corrupted by its activities in bourgeois institutions it
supported its state (and ruling class) and voted for war credits rather
than denounce the war as Imperialist slaughter for profits (see also
section J.2.6 for more discussion
on the effect of electioneering on radical parties). Clearly, Bakunin
was proved right.
However, we must stress that because Bakunin rejected participating
in bourgeois politics, it did not mean that he rejected "politics"
or "political struggle" in general (also see section
J.2.10). As he put it, "it is absolutely impossible to ignore
political and philosophical questions" and "the proletariat
itself will pose them" in the International. He argued that political
struggle will come from the class struggle, as "[w]ho can deny
that out of this ever-growing organisation of the militant solidarity
of the proletariat against bourgeois exploitation there will issue
forth the political struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie?"
Anarchists simply thought that the "policy of the proletariat"
should be "the destruction of the State" rather than working
within it. [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 301, p. 302 and p. 276]
As such, the people "must organise their powers apart from and
against the State." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin,
p. 376]
As should be obvious by now, the difference between Marx and Bakunin
on the nature of working class organisation in the struggle reflected
these differences on political struggle. Bakunin clearly advocated
what would later by termed a syndicalist strategy based on direct
action (in particular strikes) and workers' unions which would "bear
in themselves the living seeds of the new society which is to replace
the old world. They are creating not only the ideas, but also the
facts of the future itself." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p.
255] This union movement would be complemented by a specific anarchist
organisation which would work within it to influence it towards anarchist
aims by the "natural influence" of its members (see section
J.3.7 for a fuller discussion of this). Marx argued for political
parties, utilising elections, which, as the history of Social Democracy
indicates, did not have quite the outcome Marx would have liked. Section
J.2 discusses direct action, electioneering and whether anarchist
abstentionism implies disinterest in politics in more detail.
Which brings us to the second issue, namely the nature of the revolution
itself. For Bakunin, a revolution meant a social revolution
from below. This involved both the abolition of the state and
the expropriation of capital. In his words, "the revolution must
set out from the first [to] radically and totally to destroy the State."
The "natural and necessary consequences" of which will be the
"confiscation of all productive capital and means of production
on behalf of workers' associations, who are to put them to collective
use . . . the federative Alliance of all working men's associations
. . . will constitute the Commune." There "can no longer be
any successful political . . . revolution unless the political revolution
is transformed into social revolution." [Michael Bakunin: Selected
Writings, p. 170 and p. 171]
Which, incidentally, disproves Engels' claims that Bakunin considered
"the state as the main evil to be abolished." [Marx
and Engels Reader, p. 728] Clearly, Engels assertions misrepresent
Bakunin's position, as Bakunin always stressed that economic and political
transformation should occur at the same time during the revolutionary
process. Given that Bakunin thought the state was the protector of
capitalism, no economic change could be achieved until such time as
it was abolished. This also meant that Bakunin considered a political
revolution before an economic one to mean the continued slavery of
the workers. As he argued, "[t]o win political freedom first can
signify no other thing but to win this freedom only, leaving for the
first days at least economic and social relations in the same old
state, -- that is, leaving the proprietors and capitalists with their
insolent wealth, and the workers with their poverty." [The
Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 294] With capitalists' economic
power intact, could the workers' political power remain strong?
As such, "every political revolution taking place prior to and
consequently without a social revolution must necessarily be a bourgeois
revolution, and a bourgeois revolution can only be instrumental in
bringing about bourgeois Socialism -- that is, it is bound to end
in a new, more hypocritical and more skilful, but no less oppressive,
exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeois." [Op. Cit.,
p. 289]
Did Marx and Engels hold this position? Apparently so. Discussing
the Paris Commune, Marx noted that it was "the political form at
last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation
of labour," and as the "political rule of the producer cannot
coexist with the perpetuation of his social slavery" the Commune
was to "serve as a lever for uprooting the economic foundations
upon which rests the existence of classes." [Marx and Engels,
Selected Writings, p. 290] Engels argued that the "proletariat
seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the . . .
means of production . . . into public property." [The Marx-Engels
Reader, p. 717] In the Communist Manifesto they argued
that "the first step in the revolution by the working class"
is the "rais[ing] the proletariat to the position of ruling class,
to win the battle of democracy." The proletariat "will use
its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the
bourgeois, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands
of the State, i.e. of the proletariat organised as the ruling class."
[Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 52]
Similarly, when Marx discussed what the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
meant, he argued (in reply to Bakunin's question of "over whom
will the proletariat rule") that it simply meant "that so long
as other classes continue to exist, the capitalist class in particular,
the proletariat fights it (for with the coming of the proletariat
to power, its enemies will not yet have disappeared), it must use
measures of force, hence governmental measures; if it itself
still remains a class and the economic conditions on which the class
struggle and the existence of classes have not yet disappeared, they
must be forcibly removed or transformed, and the process of their
transformation must be forcibly accelerated." [The Marx-Engels
Reader, pp. 542-3] Note, "capitalists," not "former capitalists,"
so implying that the members of the proletariat are, in fact, still
proletariats after the "socialist" revolution and so still subject
to wage slavery by capitalists.
Clearly, then, Marx and Engels considered the seizing of state power
as the key event and, later, the expropriation of the expropriators
would occur. Thus the economic power of the capitalists would remain,
with the proletariat utilising political power to combat and reduce
it. Anarchists argue that if the proletariat did not hold economic
power, its political power would at best be insecure and would in
fact degenerate. Would the capitalists just sit and wait while their
economic power was gradually eliminated by political action? And what
of the proletariat during this period? Will they patiently obey their
bosses, continue to be oppressed and exploited by them until such
time as the end of their "social slavery" has been worked out (and
by whom)? As the experience of the Russian Revolution showed, Marx
and Engels position proved to be untenable.
As we discuss in more detail in the appendix on "What
happened during the Russian Revolution?", the Russian workers
initially followed Bakunin's path. After the February revolution,
they organised factory committees and raised the idea and practice
of workers self-management of production. The Russian anarchists supported
this movement whole-heartedly, arguing that it should be pushed as
far as it would go. In contrast, Lenin argued for "workers' control
over the capitalists." [Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?,
p. 52] This was, unsurprisingly, the policy applied immediately after
the Bolshevik seizure of power. However, as one Leninist writer admits,
"[t]wo overwhelmingly powerful forces obliged the Bolsheviks to
abandon this 'reformist' course." One was the start of the civil
war, the other "was the fact that the capitalists used their remaining
power to make the system unworkable. At the end of 1917 the All Russian
Congress of employers declared that those 'factories in which the
control is exercised by means of active interference in the administration
will be closed.' The workers' natural response to the wave of lockouts
which followed was to demand that their [sic!] state nationalise the
factories." [John Rees, "In Defence of October", pp. 3-82, International
Socialism, no. 52, p. 42] By July 1918, only one-fifth of nationalised
firms had been nationalised by the central government (which, incidentally,
shows the unresponsiveness of centralised power). Clearly, the idea
that a social revolution can come after a political was shown to be
a failure -- the capitalist class used its powers to disrupt the economic
life of Russia.
Faced with the predictable opposition by capitalists to their system
of "control" the Bolsheviks nationalised the means of production.
Sadly, within the nationalised workplace the situation of the
worker remained essentially unchanged. Lenin had been arguing for
one-man management (appointed from above and armed with "dictatorial"
powers) since late April 1918. This aimed at replacing the capitalist
managers with state managers, not workers self-management:
"On three occasions in the first months of Soviet power,
the [factory] committees leaders sought to bring their
model [of workers' self-management of the economy] into
being. At each point the party leadership overruled them.
The Bolshevik alternative was to vest both managerial and
control powers in organs of the state which were subordinate
to the central authorities, and formed by them." [Thomas F.
Remington, Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia, p. 38]
Bakunin's fear of what would happen if a political revolution preceded
a social one came true. The working class continued to be exploited
and oppressed as before, first by the bourgeoisie and then by the
new bourgeoisie of state appointed managers armed with all the powers
of the old ones (plus a few more). Russia confirmed Bakunin's analysis
that a revolution must immediately combine political and economic
goals in order for it to be successful.
Which brings us to the "dictatorship of the proletariat." While
many Marxists basically use this term to describe the defence of the
revolution and so argue that anarchists do not see the need to defend
a revolution, this is incorrect. Anarchists from Bakunin onwards have
argued that a revolution would have to defend itself from counter
revolution and yet we reject the term totally (see sections H.2.1,
I.5.14 and J.7.6
for a refutation of claims that anarchists think a revolution does
not need defending). So why did Bakunin reject the concept? To understand
why, we must provide some historical context -- namely the fact that
at the time he was writing the proletariat was a minority of the working
masses.
Simply put, anarchists in the nineteenth century rejected the idea
of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" simply because the proletariat
was a minority of working people at the time. As such, to argue
for a dictatorship of the proletariat meant to argue for the dictatorship
of a minority class, a class which excluded the majority of
toiling people. When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto,
for example, over 80% of the population of France and Germany were
peasants or artisans -- what Marx termed the "petit-bourgeois" and
his followers termed the "petty-bourgeois." This fact meant that the
comment in the Communist Manifesto that the "proletarian
movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense
majority, in the interests of the immense majority" was simply
not true. Rather, for Marx's life-time (and for many decades afterwards)
the proletarian movement was like "[a]ll previous movements,"
namely "movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities."
[The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 482]
Not that Marx and Engels were unaware of this. In the Manifesto
they note that "[i]n countries like France" the peasants "constitute
far more than half of the population." In his famous 1875 work
"Critique of the Gotha Program," Marx noted that "the majority
of the 'toiling people' in Germany consists of peasants, and not of
proletarians." He stressed elsewhere around the same time that
"the peasant . . . forms a more of less considerable majority .
. . in the countries of the West European continent." [Op.
Cit., p. 493, p. 536 and p. 543]
Clearly, then, Marx and Engels vision of proletarian revolution
was one which involved a minority dictating to the majority. As such,
Bakunin rejected the concept. He was simply pointing out the fact
that a "dictatorship of the proletariat," at the time, actually meant
a dictatorship by a minority of working people and so a "revolution"
which excluded the majority of working people (i.e. artisans and peasants).
As he argued in 1873:
"If the proletariat is to be the ruling class . . .
then whom will it rule? There must be yet another
proletariat which will be subject to this new rule,
this new state. It may be the peasant rabble . . .
which, finding itself on a lower cultural level,
will probably be governed by the urban and factory
proletariat." [Statism and Anarchy, pp. 177-8]
Bakunin continually stressed that the peasants "will join cause
with the city workers as soon as they become convinced that the latter
do not pretend to impose their will or some political or social order
invented by the cities for the greater happiness of the villages;
they will join cause as soon as they are assured that the industrial
workers will not take their lands away." As such, as noted above,
while the Marxists aimed for the "development and organisation
of the political power of the working classes, and chiefly of the
city proletariat," anarchists aimed for "the social (and therefore
anti-political) organisation and power of the working masses of the
cities and villages." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin,
p. 401 and p. 300]
For Bakunin, to advocate the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in
an environment where the vast majority of working people were peasants
would be a disaster. It is only when we understand this social context
that we can understand Bakunin's opposition to Marx's "dictatorship
of the proletariat" -- it would be a dictatorship of a minority class
over the rest of the working population (he took it as a truism that
the capitalist and landlord classes should be expropriated and stopped
from destroying the revolution!). For Bakunin, when the industrial
working class was a minority, it was essential to "[o]rganise the
city proletariat in the name of revolutionary Socialism, and in doing
this, unite it into one preparatory organisation together with the
peasantry. An uprising by the proletariat alone would not be enough;
with that we would have only a political revolution which would necessarily
produce a natural and legitimate reaction on the part of the peasants,
and that reaction, or merely the indifference of the peasants, would
strangle the revolution of the cities." [Op. Cit., p. 378]
This explains why the anarchists at the St. Imier Congress argued
that "every political state can be nothing but organised domination
for the benefit of one class, to the detriment of the masses, and
that should the proletariat itself seize power, it would in turn become
a new dominating and exploiting class." As the proletariat was
a minority class at the time, their concerns can be understood. For
anarchists then, and now, a social revolution has to be truly popular
and involve the majority of the population in order to succeed. Unsurprisingly,
the congress stressed the role of the proletariat in the struggle
for socialism, arguing that "the proletariat of all lands . . .
must create the solidarity of revolutionary action . . . independently
of and in opposition to all forms of bourgeois politics." Moreover,
the aim of the workers' movement was "free organisations and federations
. . . created by the spontaneous action of the proletariat itself,
[that is, by] the trade bodies and the autonomous communes." [as
cited in Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 438, p. 439 and p. 438]
Hence Bakunin's comment that "the designation of the proletariat,
the world of the workers, as class rather than as mass"
was "deeply antipathetic to us revolutionary anarchists who unconditionally
advocate full popular emancipation." To do so, he argued, meant
"[n]othing more or less than a new aristocracy, that of the urban
and industrial workers, to the exclusion of the millions who make
up the rural proletariat and who . . . will in effect become subjects
of this great so-called popular State." [Michael Bakunin: Selected
Writings, pp. 253-4]
Again, the experiences of the Russian Revolution tend to confirm
Bakunin's worries. The Bolsheviks implemented the dictatorship of
the city over the countryside, with disastrous results (see the appendix
on "What happened during the Russian Revolution?"
for more details).
One last point on this subject. While anarchists reject the "dictatorship
of the proletariat" we clearly do not reject the key role the proletariat
must play in any social revolution (see section
H.2.2 on why the Marxist assertion anarchists reject class struggle
is false). We only reject the idea that the proletariat must dictate
over other working people like peasants and artisans. We do not reject
the need for working class people to defend a revolution, nor the
need for them to expropriate the capitalist class nor for them to
manage their own activities and so society.
Then there is the issue of whether, even if the proletariat does
seize political power, whether the whole proletariat can actually
exercise it. Bakunin raising the obvious questions:
"For, even from the standpoint of that urban proletariat
who are supposed to reap the sole reward of the seizure
of political power, surely it is obvious that this power
will never be anything but a sham? It is bound to be
impossible for a few thousand, let alone tens or hundreds
of thousands of men to wield that power effectively. It
will have to be exercised by proxy, which means entrusting
it to a group of men elected to represent and govern them,
which in turn will unfailingly return them to all the
deceit and subservience of representative or bourgeois
rule. After a brief flash of liberty or orgiastic
revolution, the citizens of the new State will wake up
slaves, puppets and victims of a new group of ambitious
men." [Op. Cit., pp. 254-5]
He repeated this argument in Statism and Anarchy, where he
asked "[w]hat does it mean, 'the proletariat raised to a governing
class?' Will the entire proletariat head the government? The Germans
number about 40 million. Will all 40 millions be members of the government?
The entire nation will rule, but no one will be ruled. Then there
will be no government, no state; but if there is a state, there will
also be those who are ruled, there will be slaves." Bakunin argued
that Marxism resolves this dilemma "in a simple fashion. By popular
government they mean government of the people by a small number of
representatives elected by the people. So-called popular representatives
and rulers of the state elected by the entire nation on the basis
of universal suffrage -- the last word of the Marxists, as well as
the democratic school -- is a lie behind which lies the despotism
of a ruling minority is concealed, a lie all the more dangerous in
that it represents itself as the expression of a sham popular will."
[Statism and Anarchy, p. 178]
So where does Marx stand on this question. Clearly, the self-proclaimed
followers of Marx support the idea of "socialist" governments (indeed,
many, including Lenin and Trotsky, went so far as to argue that party
dictatorship was essential for the success of a revolution -- see
next section). Marx, however, is less
clear. He argued, in reply to Bakunin's question if all Germans would
be members of the government, that "[c]ertainly, because the thing
starts with the self-government of the township." However, he
also commented that "[c]an it really be that in a trade union,
for example, the entire union forms its executive committee,"
suggesting that there will be a division of labour between
those who govern and those who obey in the Marxist system of socialism.
[The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 545 and p. 544] Elsewhere he talks
about "a socialist government . . . com[ing] into power in a country."
["Letter to F. Domela-Nieuwenhuis," Eugene Schulkind (ed.),
The Paris Commune of 1871: The View from the Left, p. 244]
As such, Bakunin's critique holds, as Marx and Engels clearly saw
the "dictatorship of the proletariat" involving a socialist government
having power. For Bakunin, like all anarchists, if a political party
is the government, then clearly they are in power, not the mass of
working people they claim to represent. Anarchists have, from the
beginning, argued that Marx made a grave mistake confusing workers'
power with the state. This is because the state is the means by which
the management of people's affairs is taken from them and placed into
the hands of a few. It signifies delegated power. As such,
the so-called "workers' state" or "dictatorship of the proletariat"
is a contradiction in terms. Instead of signifying the power of the
working class to manage society it, in fact, signifies the opposite,
namely the handing over of that power to a few party leaders at the
top of a centralised structure. This is because "all State rule,
all governments being by their very nature placed outside the people,
must necessarily seek to subject it to customs and purposes entirely
foreign to it. We therefore declare ourselves to be foes . . . of
all State organisations as such, and believe that the people can be
happy and free, when, organised from below upwards by means of its
own autonomous and completely free associations, without the supervision
of any guardians, it will create its own life." [Marxism, Freedom
and the State, p. 63] Hence Bakunin's constant arguments for decentralised,
federal system of workers councils organised from the bottom-up. Again,
the transformation of the Bolshevik government into a dictatorship
over the proletariat during the early stages of the Russian
Revolution supports Bakunin's critique of Marxism.
Which brings us to the last issue, namely whether the revolution
will be decentralised or centralised. For Marx, the issue is somewhat
confused by his support for the Paris Commune and its federalist programme
(written, we must note, by a follower of Proudhon). However, in 1850,
Marx stood for extreme centralisation of power. As he put it, the
workers "must not only strive for a single and indivisible German
republic, but also within this republic for the most determined centralisation
of power in the hands of the state authority." He argued that
in a nation like Germany "where there is so many relics of the
Middle Ages to be abolished" it "must under no circumstances
be permitted that every village, every town and every province should
put a new obstacle in the path of revolutionary activity, which can
proceed with full force from the centre." He stressed that "[a]s
in France in 1793 so today in Germany it is the task of the really
revolutionary party to carry through the strictest centralisation."
[The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 509-10] Lenin followed this aspect
of Marx's ideas, arguing that "Marx was a centralist" and applying
this perspective both in the party and once in power [The Essential
Works of Lenin, p. 310]
Ironically, it is Engels note to the 1885 edition of Marx's work
which shows the fallacy of this position. As he put it, "this passage
is based on a misunderstanding" and it "is now . . . [a] well
known fact that throughout the whole revolution . . . the whole administration
of the departments, arrondissements and communes consisted of authorities
elected by the respective constituents themselves, and that these
authorities acted with complete freedom . . . that precisely this
provincial and local self-government . . . became the most powerful
lever of the revolution." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 510f]
Marx's original comments imply the imposition of freedom by the centre
on a population not desiring it (and in such a case, how could the
centre be representative of the majority in such a case?). Moreover,
how could a revolution be truly social if it was not occurring in
the grassroots across a country? Unsurprisingly, local autonomy has
played a key role in every real revolution.
As such, Bakunin has been proved right. Centralism has always killed
a revolution and, as he always argued, real socialism can only be
worked from below, by the people of every village, town, and city.
The problems facing the world or a revolution cannot be solved by
a few people at the top issuing decrees. They can only be solved by
the active participation of the mass of working class people, the
kind of participation centralism and government by their nature exclude.
As such, this dove-tails into the question of whether the whole class
exercises power under the "dictatorship of the proletariat." In a
centralised system, obviously, power has to be exercised by
a few (as Marx's argument in 1850 showed). Centralism, by its very
nature excludes the possibility of extensive participation in the
decision making process. Moreover, the decisions reached by such a
body could not reflect the real needs of society. In the words of
Bakunin:
"What man, what group of individuals, no matter how great their
genius, would dare to think themselves able to embrace and
understand the plethora of interests, attitudes and activities
so various in every country, every province, locality and
profession." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 240]
He stressed that "the revolution should be and should everywhere
remain independent of the central point, which must be its expression
and product -- not its source, guide and cause . . . the awakening
of all local passions and the awakening of spontaneous life at all
points, must be well developed in order for the revolution to remain
alive, real and powerful." [Op. Cit., pp. 179-80] This,
we must stress, does not imply isolation. Bakunin always stressed
the importance of federal organisation to co-ordinate struggle and
defence of the revolution. As he put it, all revolutionary communes
would need to federate in order "to organise the necessary common
services and arrangements for production and exchange, to establish
the charter of equality, the basis of all liberty -- a charter utterly
negative in character, defining what has to be abolished for ever
rather than the positive forms of local life which can be created
only by the living practice of each locality -- and to organise common
defence against the enemies of the Revolution." [Op. Cit.,
p. 179]
In short, anarchists should "not accept, even in the process
of revolutionary transition, either constituent assemblies, provisional
governments or so-called revolutionary dictatorships; because we are
convinced that revolution is only sincere, honest and real in the
hands of the masses, and that when it is concentrated in those of
a few ruling individuals it inevitably and immediately becomes reaction."
Rather, the revolution "everywhere must be created by the people,
and supreme control must always belong to the people organised into
a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations . .
. organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegation."
[Op. Cit., p. 237 and p. 172]
Given Marx's support for the federal ideas of the Paris Commune,
it can be argued that Marxism is not committed to a policy of strict
centralisation (although Lenin, of course, argued that Marx was
a firm supporter of centralisation). What is true is, to quote Daniel
Guerin, that Marx's comments on the Commune differ "noticeably
from Marx's writings of before and after 1871" while Bakunin's
were "in fact quite consistent with the lines he adopted in his
earlier writings." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 167]
Indeed, as Bakunin himself noted, while the Marxists "saw all their
ideas upset by the uprising" of the Commune, they "found themselves
compelled to take their hats off to it." [Michael Bakunin:
Selected Writings, p. 261] This modification of ideas by Marx
was not limited just to federalism. Marx also praised the commune's
system of mandating recallable delegates, a position which Bakunin
had been arguing for a number of years previously. In 1868, for example,
he was talked about a "Revolutionary Communal Council" composed
of "delegates . . . vested with plenary but accountable and removable
mandates." [Op. Cit., pp. 170-1] As such, the Paris Commune
was a striking confirmation of Bakunin's ideas on many levels, not
Marx's (who adjusted his ideas to bring them in line with Bakunin's!).
In summary, Bakunin argued that decentralisation of power was essential
for a real revolution that achieves more than changing who the boss
it. A free society could only be created and run from below, by the
active participation of the bulk of the population. Centralisation
would kill this participation and so kill the revolution. Marx and
Engels, on the other hand, while sometimes supporting federalism and
local self-government, had a centralist streak in their politics which
Bakunin thought undermined the success of any revolution.
Since Bakunin, anarchists have deepen this critique of Marxism and,
with the experience of Bolshevism, argue that he predicted key failures
in Marx's ideas. Given that his followers, particularly Lenin and
Trotsky, have emphasised (although, in many ways, changed them) the
centralisation and "socialist government" aspects of Marx's thoughts,
anarchists argue that Bakunin's critique is as relevant as ever. Real
socialism can only come from below.
There are, of course, important similarities between anarchism and Marxism.
Both are socialists, oppose capitalism and the current state, support
and encourage working class organisation and action and see class
struggle as the means of creating a social revolution which will transform
society into a new one. However, the differences between these socialist
theories are equally important. In the words of Errico Malatesta:
"The important, fundamental dissension [between anarchists and
Marxists] is [that] . . . [Marxist] socialists are authoritarians,
anarchists are libertarians.
"Socialists want power . . . and once in power wish to impose their programme
on the people. . . Anarchists instead maintain, that government
cannot be other than harmful, and by its very nature it defends
either an existing privileged class or creates a new one; and instead
of inspiring to take the place of the existing government anarchists
seek to destroy every organism which empowers some to impose their
own ideas and interests on others, for they want to free the way
for development towards better forms of human fellowship which will
emerge from experience, by everyone being free and, having, of course,
the economic means to make freedom possible as well as a reality."
[Life and Ideas, p. 142]
The other differences derive from this fundamental one. So while
there are numerous ways in which anarchists and Marxists differ, their
root lies in the question of power. Socialists seek power (in the
name of the working class and usually hidden under rhetoric arguing
that party and class power are the same). Anarchists seek to destroy
hierarchical power in all its forms and ensure that everyone is free
to manage their own affairs (both individually and collectively).
From this comes the differences on the nature of a revolution, the
way the working class movement such organise and the tactics it should
apply and so on. A short list of these differences would include the
question of the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the standing of
revolutionaries in elections, centralisation versus federalism, the
role and organisation of revolutionaries, whether socialism can only
come "from below" or whether it is possible for it come "from
below" and "from above" and a host of others (i.e. some
of the differences we indicated in the last
section during our discussion of Bakunin's critique of Marxism).
Indeed, there are so many it is difficult to address them all here.
As such, we can only concentrate on a few in this and the following
sections.
One of the key issues is on the issue of confusing party power with
popular power. The logic of the anarchist case is simple. In any system
of hierarchical and centralised power (for example, in a state or
governmental structure) then those at the top are in charge (i.e.
are in positions of power). It is not "the people," nor "the
proletariat," nor "the masses," it is those who make up the government
who have and exercise real power. As Malatesta argued, government
means "the delegation of power, that is the abdication of initiative
and sovereignty of all into the hands of a few" and "if . .
. , as do the authoritarians, one means government action when one
talks of social action, then this is still the resultant of individual
forces, but only of those individuals who form the government."
[Anarchy, p. 40 and p. 36] Therefore, anarchists argue, the
replacement of party power for working class power is inevitable because
of the nature of the state. In the words of Murray Bookchin:
"Anarchist critics of Marx pointed out with considerable effect
that any system of representation would become a statist interest
in its own right, one that at best would work against the interests
of the working classes (including the peasantry), and that at worst
would be a dictatorial power as vicious as the worst bourgeois state
machines. Indeed, with political power reinforced by economic power
in the form of a nationalised economy, a 'workers' republic' might
well prove to be a despotism (to use one of Bakunin's more favourite
terms) of unparalleled oppression."
He continues:
"Republican institutions, however much they are intended to express
the interests of the workers, necessarily place policy-making in the
hands of deputies and categorically do not constitute a 'proletariat
organised as a ruling class.' If public policy, as distinguished from
administrative activities, is not made by the people mobilised into
assemblies and confederally co-ordinated by agents on a local, regional,
and national basis, then a democracy in the precise sense of the term
does not exist. The powers that people enjoy under such circumstances
can be usurped without difficulty. . . [I]f the people are to acquire
real power over their lives and society, they must establish -- and in
the past they have, for brief periods of time established -- well-ordered
institutions in which they themselves directly formulate the policies of
their communities and, in the case of their regions, elect confederal
functionaries, revocable and strictly controllable, who will execute
them. Only in this sense can a class, especially one committed to
the abolition of classes, be mobilised as a class to manage society."
[The Communist Manifesto: Insights and Problems]
This is why anarchists stress direct democracy (self-management)
in free federations of free associations. It is the only way to ensure
that power remains in the hands of the people and is not turned into
an alien power above them. Thus Marxist support for statist forms
of organisation will inevitably undermine the liberatory nature of
the revolution.
Thus the real meaning of a workers state is simply that the
party has the real power, not the workers. After all, that
is nature of a state. Marxist rhetoric tends to hide this reality.
As an example, we can point to Lenin's comments in October, 1921.
In an essay marking the fourth anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution,
Lenin stated that the Soviet system "provides the maximum of democracy
for the workers and peasants; at the same time, it marks a break with
bourgeois democracy and the rise of a new, epoch-making type
of democracy, namely, proletarian democracy, or the dictatorship of
the proletariat." ["Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution,"
Collected Works, vol. 33, p. 55] Yet this was written years
after Lenin had argued that "[w]hen we are reproached with having
established a dictatorship of one party . . . we say, 'Yes, it is
a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall
not shift from that position . . .'" [Op. Cit., vol. 29,
p. 535] And, of course, they did not shift from that position! Indeed,
Lenin's comments came just a few months after all opposition parties
and factions within the Communist Party had been banned and after
the Kronstadt rebellion and a wave of strikes calling for free soviet
elections had been repressed. Clearly, the term "proletarian democracy"
had a drastically different meaning to Lenin than to most people!
Indeed, the identification of party power and working class power
reaches its height (or, more correctly, depth) in the works of Lenin
and Trotsky. Lenin, for example, argued that "the correct understanding
of a Communist of his tasks" lies in "correctly gauging the
conditions and the moment when the vanguard of the proletariat can
successfully seize power, when it will be able during and after this
seizure of power to obtain support from sufficiently broad strata
of the working class and of the non-proletarian toiling masses, and
when, thereafter, it will be able to maintain, consolidate, and extend
its rule, educating, training and attracting ever broader masses of
the toilers." Note, the vanguard (the party) seizes power, not
the masses. Indeed, he stressed that the "very presentation of
the question -- 'dictatorship of the Party or dictatorship
of the class, dictatorship (Party) of the leaders or dictatorship
(Party) of the masses?' is evidence of the most incredible and hopeless
confusion of mind" and "[t]o go so far . . . as to draw a contrast
in general between the dictatorship of the masses and the dictatorship
of the leaders, is ridiculously absurd and stupid." [Left-Wing
Communism: An Infantile Disorder, p. 35, p. 27 and p. 25]
Lenin stressed this idea numerous times. For example, in 1920 he
argued that "the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised
through an organisation embracing the whole of the class, because
in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the
most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and
so corrupted in parts . . . that an organisation taking in the whole
proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It
can be exercised only by a vanguard . . . Such is the basic mechanism
of the dictatorship of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the
essentials of transitions from capitalism to communism . . . for the
dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian
organisation." [Collected Works, vol. 32, p. 21]
Trotsky agreed with this lesson and argued it to the end of his
life:
"The revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party is for
me not a thing that one can freely accept or reject: It is an
objective necessity imposed upon us by the social realities --
the class struggle, the heterogeneity of the revolutionary
class, the necessity for a selected vanguard in order to
assure the victory. The dictatorship of a party belongs to the
barbarian prehistory as does the state itself, but we can not
jump over this chapter, which can open (not at one stroke)
genuine human history. . . The revolutionary party
(vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship surrenders
the masses to the counter-revolution . . . Abstractly
speaking, it would be very well if the party dictatorship
could be replaced by the 'dictatorship' of the whole toiling
people without any party, but this presupposes such a high
level of political development among the masses that it can
never be achieved under capitalist conditions. The reason
for the revolution comes from the circumstance that
capitalism does not permit the material and the moral
development of the masses." [Writings 1936-37, pp. 513-4]
This point is reiterated in his essay, "Stalinism and Bolshevism"
(again, written in 1937) when he argued that:
"Those who propose the abstraction of Soviets to the
party dictatorship should understand that only thanks to
the party dictatorship were the Soviets able to lift
themselves out of the mud of reformism and attain the
state form of the proletariat." [Stalinism and
Bolshevism]
How soviet democracy can exist within the context of a party dictatorship
is left to the imagination of the reader! Rather than the working
class as a whole seizing power, it is the "vanguard" which takes power
-- "a revolutionary party, even after seizing power . . . is still
by no means the sovereign ruler of society." [Op. Cit.]
Needless to say, he was just repeating the same arguments he had made
while in power during the Russian Revolution (see "What
happened during the Russian Revolution?" for details). Nor was
he the only one. Zinoviev, another leading Bolshevik, argued in 1920
along the same lines:
"soviet rule in Russia could not have been maintained for
three years -- not even three weeks -- without the iron
dictatorship of the Communist Party. Any class conscious
worker must understand that the dictatorship of the
working class can by achieved only by the dictatorship
of its vanguard, i.e., by the Communist Party . . . All
questions of economic reconstruction, military organisation,
education, food supply -- all these questions, on which
the fate if the proletarian revolution depends absolutely,
are decided in Russia before all other matters and mostly
in the framework of the party organisations . . . Control
by the party over soviet organs, over the trade unions,
is the single durable guarantee that any measures taken
will serve not special interests, but the interests of
the entire proletariat." [quoted by Oskar Anweiler,
The Soviets, pp. 239-40]
How these positions, clearly argued as inevitable for any
revolution, can be reconciled with workers' democracy, power or freedom
is not explained. As such, the idea that Leninism (usually considered
as mainstream Marxism) is inherently democratic or a supporter of
power to the people is clearly flawed. The leading lights of Bolshevism
argued that the dictatorship of the proletariat could only be achieved
by the dictatorship of the party. Indeed, the whole rationale for
party dictatorship came from the fundamental rationale for democracy,
namely that any government should reflect the changing opinions of
the masses. In the words of Trotsky:
"The very same masses are at different times inspired
by different moods and objectives. It is just for this
reason that a centralised organisation of the vanguard
is indispensable. Only a party, wielding the authority
it has won, is capable of overcoming the vacillation
of the masses themselves." [The Moralists and Sycophants,
p. 59]
This position has its roots in the uneven political development
within the working class (i.e. that the working class contains numerous
political perspectives within it). As the party (according to Leninist
theory) contains the most advanced ideas (and, again according to
Leninist theory, the working class cannot reach beyond a trade union
consciousness by its own efforts), the party must take power to ensure
that the masses do not make "mistakes" or "waver" ("vacillation")
during a revolution. From such a perspective to the position of party
dictatorship is not far (and a journey that all the leading Bolsheviks,
including Lenin and Trotsky, we must note, did in fact take).
In contrast, anarchists argue that precisely because of political
differences we need the fullest possible democracy and freedom to
discuss issues and reach agreements. Only by discussion and self-activity
can the political perspectives of those in struggle develop and change.
In other words, the fact Bolshevism uses to justify its support for
party power is the strongest argument against it. For anarchists,
the idea of a revolutionary government is a contradiction. As Italian
anarchist Malatesta put it, "if you consider these worthy electors
as unable to look after their own interests themselves, how is it
that they will know how to choose for themselves the shepherds who
must guide them? And how will they be able to solve this problem of
social alchemy, of producing a genius from the votes of a mass of
fools?" [Anarchy, p. 53]
As such, anarchists think that power should be in the hands of the
masses themselves. Only freedom or the struggle for freedom can be
the school of freedom. That means that, to quote Bakunin, "since
it is the people which must make the revolution everywhere . . . the
ultimate direction of it must at all times be vested in the people
organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial organisations
. . . organised from the bottom up through revolutionary delegation."
[No God, No Masters, vol. 1, pp. 155-6]
Clearly, then, the question of state/party power is one dividing
anarchists and most Marxists. These arguments by leading Bolsheviks
confirm Bakunin's fear that the Marxists aimed for "a tyranny of
the minority over a majority in the name of the people -- in the name
of the stupidity of the many and the superior wisdom of the few."
[Marxism, Freedom and the State, p. 63] Again, though, we must
stress that libertarian Marxists like the council communists agree
with anarchists on this subject and reject the whole idea that dictatorship
of a party equals the dictatorship of the working class. As such,
the Marxist tradition as a whole does not confuse this issue, although
the majority of it does. We must stress that not all Marxists are
Leninists. A few (council communists, situationists, autonomists,
and so on) are far closer to anarchism. They also reject the idea
of party power/dictatorship, the use of elections, for direct action,
argue for the abolition of wage slavery by workers' self-management
of production and so on. They represent the best in Marx's work and
should not be lumped with the followers of Bolshevism. Sadly, they
are in the minority.
Finally, we should indicate other important areas of difference.
Some are summarised by Lenin in his work The State and Revolution:
"The difference between the Marxists and the anarchists is
this: 1) the former, while aiming at the complete abolition
of the state, recognise that this aim can only be achieved
after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution,
as the result of the establishment of socialism which leads
to the withering away of the state. The latter want to abolish
the state completely overnight, failing to understand the
conditions under which the state can be abolished 2) the
former recognise that after the proletariat has conquered
political power it must utterly destroy the old state machine
and substitute it for it a new one consisting of the
organisation of armed workers, after the type of the
Commune. The latter, while advocating the destruction of
the state machine, have absolutely no idea of what the
proletariat will put in its place and how it will use
its revolutionary power; the anarchists even deny that
the revolutionary proletariat should utilise its state
power, its revolutionary dictatorship; 3) the former demand
that the proletariat be prepared for revolution by utilising
the present state; the latter reject this." [Essential
Works of Lenin, p. 358]
We will discuss each of these points in the next three sections.
Point one will be discussed in section
H.1.3, the second in section H.1.4
and the third and final one in section
H.1.5.
As indicated at the end of the last section,
Lenin argued that while Marxists aimed "at the complete abolition
of the state" they "recognise that this aim can only be achieved
after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution"
while anarchists "want to abolish the state completely overnight."
This issue is usually summarised by Marxists arguing that a new state
is required to replace the destroyed bourgeois one. This new state
is called by Marxists "the dictatorship of the proletariat" or a workers'
state. Anarchists reject this transitional state while Marxists embrace
it. Indeed, according to Lenin "a Marxist is one who extends
the acceptance of the class struggle to the acceptance of the dictatorship
of the proletariat." [Essential Works of Lenin, p.
358 and p. 294]
So what does the "dictatorship of the proletariat" actually mean?
Generally, Marxists seem to imply that this term simply means the
defence of the revolution and so the anarchist rejection of the dictatorship
of the proletariat means the rejection of the defence of a revolution.
Anarchists, they argue, differ from Marxist-communists in that we
reject the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, where the
formerly oppressed use coercion to ensure that remnants of the oppressing
classes do not resurrect the old society. This particular straw man
was used by Lenin in State and Revolution when he quoted Marx
to suggest that anarchists would "lay down their arms" after
a successful revolution. Such a "laying down of arms" would
mean the "abolition of the state" while defending the revolution
by violence would mean "giv[ing] the state a revolutionary and
transitory form." [Op. Cit., p. 315]
That such an argument can be made, never mind repeated, suggests
a lack of honesty. It assumes that the Marxist and Anarchist definitions
of "the state" are identical. They are not. As such, it is pretty
meaningless to argue, as Lenin did, that when anarchists talk about
abolishing the state they mean that they will not defend a revolution.
As Malatesta put it, some "seem almost to believe that after having
brought down government and private property we would allow both to
be quietly built up again, because of respect for the freedom
of those who might feel the need to be rulers and property owners.
A truly curious way of interpreting our ideas." [Anarchy,
p. 41]
For anarchists the state, government, means "the delegation of
power, that is the abdication of initiative and sovereignty of all
into the hands of a few." [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 40]
For Marxists, the state is "an organ of class rule, an organ
for the oppression of one class by another." [Lenin, Op.
Cit., p. 274] That these definitions are in conflict is clear
and unless this difference is made explicit, anarchist opposition
to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" cannot be clearly understood.
Anarchists, of course, agree that the current state is the means
by which the bourgeois class enforces its rule over society. In Bakunin's
words, "the political state has no other mission but to protect
the exploitation of the people by the economically privileged classes."
[The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 221] Under capitalism,
as Malatesta succulently put, the state is "the bourgeoisie's servant
and gendarme." [Op. Cit., p. 20] The reason why
the state is marked by centralised power is due to its role as the
protector of (minority) class rule. As such, a state cannot be anything
but a defender of minority power as its centralised and hierarchical
structure is designed for that purpose. If the working class really
was running society, as Marxists claim they would be in the "dictatorship
of the proletariat," then it would not be a state. As Bakunin argued,
"[w]here all rule, there are no more ruled, and there is no State."
[Op. Cit., p. 223]
As such, the idea that anarchists, by rejecting the "dictatorship
of the proletariat," also reject defending a revolution is false.
We do not equate the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the need
to defend a revolution or expropriating the capitalist class, ending
capitalism and building socialism. Anarchists from Bakunin onwards
have taken both of these necessities for granted (also see sections
H.2.1, I.5.14
and J.7.6). As he stressed, "the
sole means of opposing the reactionary forces of the state" was
the "organising of the revolutionary force of the people."
This revolution involve "the free construction of popular life
in accordance with popular needs . . . from below upward, by the people
themselves . . . [in] a voluntary alliance of agricultural and factory
worker associations, communes, provinces, and nations." [Statism
and Anarchy, p. 156 and p. 33]
As we discuss this particular Marxist straw man in section
H.2.1, we will leave our comments at this. Clearly, then, anarchists
do not reject defending a revolution. We argue that the state must
be abolished "overnight" as any state is marked by hierarchical power
and can only empower the few at the expense of the many. The state
will not "wither away" as Marxists claim simply because it excludes,
by its very nature, the active participation of the bulk of the population
and ensures a new class division in society: those in power (the party)
and those subject to it (the working class).
Georges Fontenis sums up anarchist concerns on this issue:
"The formula 'dictatorship of the proletariat' has been used
to mean many different things. If for no other reason it
should be condemned as a cause of confusion. With Marx it
can just as easily mean the centralised dictatorship of
the party which claims to represent the proletariat as it
can the federalist conception of the Commune.
"Can it mean the exercise of political power by the victorious working class?
No, because the exercise of political power in the recognised sense
of the term can only take place through the agency of an exclusive
group practising a monopoly of power, separating itself from the
class and oppressing it. And this is how the attempt to use a State
apparatus can reduce the dictatorship of the proletariat to the
dictatorship of the party over the masses.
"But if by dictatorship of the proletariat is understood collective
and direct exercise of 'political power', this would mean the disappearance
of 'political power' since its distinctive characteristics are supremacy,
exclusivity and monopoly. It is no longer a question of exercising
or seizing political power, it is about doing away with it all together!
"If by dictatorship is meant the domination of the majority by
a minority, then it is not a question of giving power to the proletariat
but to a party, a distinct political group. If by dictatorship is
meant the domination of a minority by the majority (domination by
the victorious proletariat of the remnants of a bourgeoisie that
has been defeated as a class) then the setting up of dictatorship
means nothing but the need for the majority to efficiently arrange
for its defence its own social Organisation.
[...]
"The terms 'domination', 'dictatorship' and 'state' are as little
appropriate as the expression 'taking power' for the revolutionary
act of the seizure of the factories by the workers.
We reject then as inaccurate and causes of confusion the expressions
'dictatorship of the proletariat', 'taking political power', 'workers
state', 'socialist state' and 'proletarian state'." [Manifesto
of Libertarian Communism, pp. 22-3]
In summary, anarchists argue that the state has to be abolished
"overnight" simply because a state is marked by hierarchical power
and the exclusion of the bulk of the population from the decision
making process. It cannot be used to implement socialism simply because
it is not designed that way. To extend and defend a revolution a state
is not required. Indeed, it is a hindrance:
"The mistake of authoritarian communists in this connection is the
belief that fighting and organising are impossible without
submission to a government; and thus they regard anarchists . . .
as the foes of all organisation and all co-ordinated struggle. We,
on the other hand, maintain that not only are revolutionary
struggle and revolutionary organisation possible outside and in
spite of government interference but that, indeed, that is the
only effective way to struggle and organise, for it has the active
participation of all members of the collective unit, instead of
their passively entrusting themselves to the authority of the
supreme leaders.
"Any governing body is an impediment to the real organisation of the broad
masses, the majority. Where a government exists, then the only really
organised people are the minority who make up the government; and
. . . if the masses do organise, they do so against it, outside
it, or at the very least, independently of it. In ossifying into
a government, the revolution as such would fall apart, on account
of its awarding that government the monopoly of organisation and
of the means of struggle." [Luigi Fabbri, "Anarchy and 'Scientific'
Communism", in The Poverty of Statism, pp. 13-49, Albert
Meltzer (ed.), p. 27]
For anarchists, the abolition of the state does not mean rejecting
the need to extend or defend a revolution (quite the reverse!). It
means rejecting a system of organisation designed by and for minorities
to ensure their rule. To create a state (even a "workers' state")
means to delegate power away from the working class and eliminate
their power in favour of party power. In place of a state anarchists'
argue for a free federation of workers' organisations as the means
of conducting a revolution (and the framework for its defence).
As we discuss in the next section,
anarchists see this federation of workers' associations and communes
(the framework of a free society) as being based on the organisations
working class people create in their struggle against capitalism.
These self-managed organisations, by refusing to become part of a
centralised state, will ensure the success of a revolution.
Lenin's second claim is that anarchists, "while advocating the destruction
of the state machine, have absolutely no idea of what the proletariat
will put in its place" and compares this to the Marxists who argue
for a new state machine "consisting of armed workers, after the
type of the Commune." [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 358]
For anarchists, Lenin's assertion simply shows his unfamiliarity with
anarchist literature and need not be taken seriously -- anyone familiar
will anarchist theory would simply laugh at such comments. Sadly,
most Marxists are not familiar with that theory, so we need
to explain two things. Firstly, anarchists have very clear ideas on
what to "replace" the state with (namely a federation of communes
based on working class associations). Secondly, that this idea is
based on the idea of armed workers, inspired by the Paris Commune
(although predicted by Bakunin).
Moreover, for anarchists Lenin's comment seems somewhat incredulous.
As George Barrett puts it, in reply to the question "if you abolish
government, what will you put it its place," this "seems to
an Anarchist very much as if a patient asked the doctor, 'If you take
away my illness, what will you give me in its place?' The Anarchist's
argument is that government fulfils no useful purpose . . . It is
the headquarters of the profit-makers, the rent-takers, and of all
those who take from but who do not give to society. When this class
is abolished by the people so organising themselves to run the factories
and use the land for the benefit of their free communities, i.e. for
their own benefit, then the Government must also be swept away, since
its purpose will be gone. The only thing then that will be put in
the place of government will be the free organisation of the workers.
When Tyranny is abolished, Liberty remains, just as when disease is
eradicated health remains." [Objections to Anarchism]
However, Barrett's answer does contain the standard anarchist position
on what will be the basis of a revolutionary society, namely that
the "only thing then that will be put in the place of government
will be the free organisation of the workers." This is a concise
summary of anarchist theory and cannot be bettered. This vision, as
we discussed in section I.2.3 in some
detail, can be found in the work of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta
and a host of other anarchist thinkers. Since anarchists from Bakunin
onwards have stressed that a federation of workers' associations would
constitute the framework of a free society, to assert otherwise is
little more than a joke or a slander. To quote Bakunin:
"the federative alliance of all working men's associations . . .
[will] constitute the Commune . . . [the] Communal Council [will
be] composed of . . . delegates . . . vested with plenary but
accountable and removable mandates. . . all provinces, communes
and associations . . . by first reorganising on revolutionary lines
. . . [will] constitute the federation of insurgent associations,
communes and provinces . . . [and] organise a revolutionary force
capable defeating reaction . . . [and for] self-defence . . .
[The] revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and
supreme control must always belong to the people organised into a
free federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . .
organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary
delegation. . ." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 170-2]
And:
"The future social organisation must be made solely from the
bottom up, by the free association or federation of workers,
firstly in their unions, then in the communes, regions,
nations and finally in a great federation, international
and universal." [Op. Cit., p. 206]
Similar ideas can easily be found in the works of other anarchists.
While the actual names and specific details of these federations of
workers' associations may change (for example, the factory committees
and soviets in the Russian Revolution, the collectives in Spain, the
section assemblies in the French Revolution are a few of them) the
basic ideas are the same. Bakunin also pointed to the means of defence,
a workers' militia (the people armed, as per the Paris Commune):
"While it [the revolution] will be carried out locally everywhere,
the revolution will of necessity take a federalist format.
Immediately after established government has been overthrown,
communes will have to reorganise themselves along revolutionary
lines . . . In order to defend the revolution, their volunteers
will at the same time form a communal militia. But no commune can
defend itself in isolation. So it will be necessary for each of
them to radiate outwards, to raise all its neighbouring communes
in revolt . . . and to federate with them for common defence."
[No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 142]
A major difference between anarchism and Marxism which Lenin points
to is, clearly, false. Anarchists are well aware of what should "replace"
the bourgeois state and have always been so. The real difference
is simply that anarchists say what they mean while Lenin's "new" state
did not, in fact, mean working class power but rather party power.
We discussed this issue in more detail in section
H.1.2, so we will not do so here.
As for Lenin's comment that we have "absolutely no ideas"
of how the working class "will use its revolutionary power"
suggests more ignorance, as we have urged working people to expropriate
the expropriators, reorganise production under workers' self-management
and start to construct society from the bottom upwards (a quick glance
at Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread, for example, would soon convince
any reader of the inaccuracy of Lenin's comment). This summary by
the anarchist Jura Federation (written in 1880) gives a flavour of
anarchist ideas on this subject:
"The bourgeoisie's power over the popular masses springs from
economic privileges, political domination and the enshrining
of such privileges in the laws. So we must strike at the
wellsprings of bourgeois power, as well as its various
manifestations.
"The following measures strike us as essential to the welfare of the revolution,
every bit as much as armed struggle against its enemies:
"The insurgents must confiscate social capital, landed estates,
mines, housing, religious and public buildings, instruments of labour,
raw materials, gems and precious stones and manufactured products:
"All political, administrative and judicial authorities are to
be abolished.
". . . What should the organisational measures of the revolution
be?
"Immediate and spontaneous establishment of trade bodies: provisional
assumption by those of . . . social capital . . .: local federation
of a trades bodies and labour organisation:
"Establishment of neighbourhood groups and federations of same
. . .
[. . .]
"[T]he federation of all the revolutionary forces of the insurgent
Communes . . . Federation of Communes and organisation of the masses,
with an eye to the revolution's enduring until such time as all
reactionary activity has been completely eradicated.
[. . .]
"Once trade bodies have been have been established, the next step
is to organise local life. The organ of this life is to be the federation
of trades bodies and it is this local federation which is to constitute
the future Commune." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, pp.
246-7]
Clearly, anarchists do have some ideas on what the working class
will "replace" the state with and how it will use its "revolutionary
power"!
Similarly, Lenin's statement that "the anarchists even deny that
the revolutionary proletariat should utilise its state power, its
revolutionary dictatorship" again distorts the anarchist position.
As we argued in section H.1.2, our
objection to the "state power" of the proletariat is precisely because
it cannot, by its very nature as a state, actually allow the working
class to manage society directly (and, of course, it automatically
excludes other sections of the working masses, such as the peasantry
and artisans). We argued that, in practice, it would simply mean the
dictatorship of a few party leaders. This position, we must stress,
was one Lenin himself was arguing in the year after completing State
and Revolution. Ironically, the leading Bolsheviks (as we have
seen in section H.1.2) confirmed the
anarchist argument that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would,
in fact, become a dictatorship over the proletariat by the
party.
Italian anarchist Camillo Berneri sums up the differences well:
"The Marxists . . . foresee the natural disappearance of the State
as a consequence of the destruction of classes by the means of
'the dictatorship of the proletariat,' that is to say State
Socialism, whereas the Anarchists desire the destruction of the
classes by means of a social revolution which eliminates, with the
classes, the State. The Marxists, moreover, do not propose the
armed conquest of the Commune by the whole proletariat, but the
propose the conquest of the State by the party which imagines that
it represents the proletariat. The Anarchists allow the use of
direct power by the proletariat, but they understand by the organ
of this power to be formed by the entire corpus of systems of
communist administration-corporate organisations [i.e. industrial
unions], communal institutions, both regional and national-freely
constituted outside and in opposition to all political monopoly by
parties and endeavouring to a minimum administrational
centralisation." ["Dictatorship of the Proletariat and State
Socialism", Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review, no. 4, p. 52]
Clearly, Lenin's assertions are little more than straw men.
Lastly, there is the question of Marxists demanding (in the words of Lenin)
"that the proletariat be prepared for revolution by utilising the
present state" while anarchists "reject this." Today, of
course, this has changed. Libertarian Marxists, such as council communists,
also reject "utilising the present state" to train the proletariat
for revolution (i.e. for socialists to stand for elections). For anarchists,
the use of elections does not "prepare" the working class for revolution
(i.e. managing their own affairs and society). Rather, it prepares
them to follow leaders and let others act for them. In the words of
Rudolf Rocker:
"Participation in the politics of the bourgeois States has not
brought the labour movement a hair's-breadth nearer to Socialism,
but thanks to this method, Socialism has almost been completely
crushed and condemned to insignificance. . . Participation in
parliamentary politics has affected the Socialist Labour movement
like an insidious poison. It destroyed the belief in the necessity
of constructive Socialist activity, and, worse of all, the impulse
to self-help, by inoculating people with the ruinous delusion
that salvation always comes from above." [Anarcho-Syndicalism,
p. 49]
While electoral ("political") activity ensures that the masses become
accustomed to following leaders and letting them act on their behalf,
anarchists' support direct action as "the best available means
for preparing the masses to manage their own personal and collective
interests; and besides, anarchists feel that even now the working
people are fully capable of handling their own political and administrative
interests." [Luigi Galleani, The End of Anarchism?, pp.
13-4]
Anarchists, therefore, argue that we need to reclaim the power which
has been concentrated into the hands of the state. That is why we
stress direct action. Direct action means |
