In chapter three of his pamphlet Socialism from Below, David
McNally decides to expose (what he calls) "The Myth Of Anarchist
Libertarianism." In reality, his account is so distorted and,
indeed, dishonest that all it proves is that Marxists will go
to extreme lengths to attack anarchist ideas. As Brain Morris
points out, defending the Leninist tradition and ideology "implies
. . . a compulsive need to rubbish anarchism." [Ecology &
Anarchism, p. 128] McNally's pamphlet is a classic example of
this. As we will prove, his "case" is a mish-mash of illogical
assertions, lies and, when facts do appear, their use is simply
a means of painting a false picture of reality.
He begins by noting that "Anarchism is often considered to represent
[a] current of radical thought that is truly democratic and libertarian.
It is hailed in some quarters as the only true political philosophy [of]
freedom." Needless to say, he thinks that the "reality is quite
different." He argues that "[f]rom its inception anarchism has
been a profoundly anti-democratic doctrine. Indeed the two most
important founders of anarchism, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Michael
Bakunin, developed theories that were elitist and authoritarian to
the core." We will discover the truth of this assertion later.
However, we must note that McNally uses the typical Marxist approach
to attacking anarchism -- namely to attack anarchists rather than
anarchism as such. Indeed, he lamely notes that "[w]hile later
anarchists may have abandoned some of the excesses' of their
founding fathers their philosophy remains hostile to ideas of
mass democracy and workers' power." Thus, we have the acknowledgement
that not all anarchists share the same ideas and that anarchist
theory has developed since 1876 (the year of Bakunin's death).
This is to be expected as anarchists are not Proudhonists or
Bakuninists -- we do not name ourselves after one person,
rather we take what is useful from libertarian writers and
ignore the rubbish. In Malatesta's words, "[w]e follow ideas
and not men, and rebel against this habit of embodying a principle
in a man." [Life and Ideas, p. 199] However, this is beside the point as
McNally's account of the anarchism of Proudhon and Bakunin
is simply false -- indeed, so false as to make you wonder if
he is simply incompetent as a scholar or seeks to present a
patchwork of lies as fact and "theory."
McNally does start out by acknowledging that "anarchism developed
in opposition to the growth of capitalist society. What's more,
anarchist hostility to capitalism centred on defence of the
liberty of the individual." However, he then distorts this actual
historical development by arguing that "the liberty defended by
the anarchists was not the freedom of the working class to make
collectively a new society. Rather, anarchism defended the freedom
of the small property owner -- the shopkeeper, artisan and tradesman --
against the encroachments of large-scale capitalist enterprise."
Such a position is, to say the least, a total distortion of the
facts of the situation. Proudhon, for example, addressed himself
to both the peasant/artisan and the proletariat. He argued in What
is Property? that he "preach[ed] emancipation to the proletaires;
association to the labourers." [p. 137] Thus Proudhon addressed
himself to both the peasant/artisan and the "working class"
(i.e. wage slaves). This is to be expected from a libertarian
form of socialism as, at the time of his writing, the majority
of working people were peasants and artisans . Indeed, this
predominance of artisan/peasant workers in the French economy
lasted until the turn of the century. Not to take into account
the artisan/peasant would have meant the dictatorship of a
minority of working people over the rest of them. Given that
in chapter 4 of his pamphlet McNally states that Marxism aims for
a "democratic and collective society . . . based upon the fullest
possible political democracy" his attack on Proudhon's concern
for the artisan and peasant is doubly strange. Either you support
the "fullest possible political democracy" (and so your theory
must take into account artisans and peasants) or you restrict
political democracy and replace it with rule by the few.
Thus Proudhon did support the "the freedom of the working class
to make collectively a new society." His ideas were aimed at both
artisan/peasant and proletarian. Moreover, this position was a
distinctly sensible and radical position to take:
Nor does Marx seem to have been correct concerning the
revolutionary nature of the industrial proletariat. It has
become a cliche of French labour history that during the
nineteenth century artisans were much oftener radical than
industrial workers. Some of the most militant action of
workers in late nineteenth century France seems to have
emerged from the co-operation of skilled, urbanised
artisanal workers with less highly skilled and less
urbanised industrial workers." [K. Steven Vincent,
Prerre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French
Republican Socialism, pp. 282-3]
The fruits of this union included the Paris Commune (an event
both McNally and Marx praise -- see
section 12 for more discussion
on this). In addition, as we will see, Proudhon's proposals for
a mutualist society included workers self-management and collective
ownership of large scale workplaces as well as artisan and peasant
production. This proposal existed explicitly for the proletariat,
for wage slaves, and explicitly aimed to end wage labour and
replace it by association and self-management (Proudhon stated that
he aimed for "the complete emancipation of the worker . . . the
abolition of the wage worker." [quoted by Vincent,
Op. Cit., p. 222]). Thus, rather than
being backward looking and aimed at the artisan/peasant, Proudhon's
ideas looked to the present (and so the future) and to both the
artisan/peasant and proletariat (i.e. to the whole of the
working class in France at the time).
In the words of Gustav Landauer, Proudhon's "socialism . . . of the
years 1848 to 1851 was the socialism of the French people in the
years 1848 to 1851. It was the socialism that was possible and
necessary at that moment. Proudhon was not a Utopian and a
prophet; not a Fourier and not a Marx. He was a man of action
and realisation." [For Socialism, p. 108] Vincent makes the
same point, arguing that Proudhon's "social theories may not be
reduced to a socialism for only the peasant class, nor was it
a socialism only for the petite bourgeois; it was a socialism
of and for French workers. And in the nineteenth century . . .
most French workers were still artisans. . . French labour
ideology largely resulted from the real social experiences and
aspirations of skilled workers . . . Proudhon's thought was
rooted in the same fundamental reality, and therefore
understandably shared many of the same hopes and ideals."
[Op. Cit., pp. 5-6] It is no coincidence,
therefore, that when he was elected to the French Parliament in
1848 most of the votes cast for him were from "working class
districts of Paris -- a fact which stands in contrast to the
claims of some Marxists, who have said he was representative
only of the petite bourgeoisie." [Robert L. Hoffman, quoted
by Robert Graham, "Introduction", P-J Proudhon, General Idea
of the Revolution, p. xv]
Given that his proposals were aimed at the whole working class,
it is unsurprising that Proudhon saw social change as coming
from "below" by the collective action of the working class:
In the same work he continues his discussion of proletarian
self-organisation as the means of social change:
Little wonder Proudhon saw the validity of his mutualist
vision from the self-activity of French workers (see
section A.1.5 for
details). Where Proudhon differs from
later anarchists like Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta and
Goldman is that this self-activity is reformist in nature,
that is seeking alternatives to capitalism which can
reform it away rather than alternatives that can fight
and destroy it. Thus Proudhon places his ideas firmly in
the actions of working people resisting wage slavery
(i.e. the proletariat, not the "small property owner").
Similarly with Bakunin. He argued that "revolution is only
sincere, honest and real in the hands of the masses" and so
socialism can be achieved "by the development and organisation,
not of the political but of the social (and, by consequence,
anti-political) power of the working masses . . . . organise[d]
and federate[d] spontaneously, freely, from the bottom up,
by their own momentum according to their real interest, but
never according to any plan laid down in advance and imposed
upon the ignorant masses by some superior intellects." Such
a socialist society would be based on "the collective ownership
of producers' associations, freely organised and federated
in the communes, and by the equally spontaneous federation
of these communes." Thus "the land, the instruments of work
and all other capital [will] become the collective property
of the whole of society and be utilised only by the workers,
in other words by the agricultural and industrial associations."
And the means to this socialist society? Trade unionism
("the complete solidarity of individuals, sections and
federations in the economic struggle of the workers of
all countries against their exploiters.") [Michael Bakunin:
Selected Writings, p. 237, pp. 197-8, p. 197, p. 174 and
p. 177] Indeed, he considered trade unions (organised from
the bottom up, of course) as "the natural organisation of
the masses" and thought that "workers' solidarity in their
struggle against the bosses . . . [by] trades-unions,
organisation, and the federation of resistance funds"
was the means by which workers could emancipate itself
"through practical action." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 139
and p. 103]
And McNally asserts that "the liberty defended by the anarchists
was not the freedom of the working class to make collectively a
new society"! Only someone ignorant of anarchist theory or with a
desire to deceive could make such an assertion.
Needless to say, McNally's claim that anarchism is the politics
of the "small property owner" would be even harder to justify if
he mentioned Kropotkin's communist anarchism. However, like
Proudhon's and Bakunin's support for collective ownership by
workers associations it goes unmentioned -- for obvious reasons.
McNally continues. He asserts, regardless of the facts, that anarchism
"represented the anguished cry of the small property owner against
the inevitable advance of capitalism. For that reason, it glorified
values from the past: individual property, the patriarchal family,
racism."
Firstly, we should note that unlike Marx, anarchists did not think
that capitalism was inevitable or an essential phase society had
to go through before we could reach a free society. They did not
share Marx's viewpoint that socialism (and the struggle for socialism)
had to be postponed until capitalism had developed sufficiently
so that the "centralisation of the means of production and the
socialisation [sic!] of labour reach a point at which they become
incompatible with their capitalist integument." [Karl Marx,
Capital, vol. 1, p. 929] As McNally states, socialism was once
the "banner under which millions of working people resisted the
horrors of the factory system and demanded a new society of
equality, justice, freedom and prosperity." Unfortunately, the
Marxist tradition viewed such horrors as essential, unavoidable
and inevitable and any form of working class struggle -- such
as the Luddites -- which resisted the development of capitalism
was denounced. So much for Marxism being in favour of working
class "self-emancipation" -- if working class resistance
to oppression and exploitation which does not fit into its
scheme for "working class self-emancipation" then it is the
product of ignorance or non-working class influences.
Thus, rather than representing "the anguished cry of the small
property owner against the inevitable advance of capitalism"
anarchism is rather the cry of the oppressed against capitalism
and the desire to create a free society in the here and now and
not some time in the future. To quote Landauer again:
Thus McNally confuses a desire to achieve socialism with
backward looking opposition to capitalism. As we will see,
Proudhon looked at the current state of society, not
backwards, as McNally suggests, and his theory reflected
both artisan/peasant interests and those of wage slaves
-- as would be expected from a socialist aiming to
transform his society to a free one. The disastrous
results of Bolshevik rule in Russia should indicate
the dangers of ignoring the vast bulk of a nation (i.e.
the peasants) when trying to create a revolutionary
change in society.
Secondly, it is not really true that Proudhon or Bakunin
"glorified" "individual property" as such. Proudhon
argued that "property is theft" and that "property is
despotism." He was well aware of the negative side
effects of individual property. Rather he wanted to
abolish property and replace it with possession. We
doubt that McNally wants to socialise all "property"
(including individual possessions and such like). We
are sure that he, like Marx and Engels, wants to retain
individual possessions in a socialist society. Thus
they state that the "distinguishing feature of
Communism is not the abolition of property generally,
but the abolition of bourgeois property" and that
"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate
the products of society; all that it does is to deprive
him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by
means of such appropriation." [The Manifesto of the
Communist Party, p.47 and p. 49] Later Marx argued
that the Paris Commune "wanted to make individual
property a truth by transforming the means of production,
land and capital . . . into mere instruments of free and
associated labour." [Selected Writings, pp. 290-1]
Thus support for "individual property" is not confined
to Proudhon (and we must note that Proudhon desired to
turn capital over to associated labour as well -- see
section A.5.1
for Proudhon's influence in the economic
measures made during the Commune to create co-operatives).
Indeed, initially Marx had nothing but praise for Proudhon's
critique of Property contained in his classic work What is
Property?:
As Rocker argues, Marx changed his tune simply to
"conceal from everyone just what he owed to Proudhon
and any means to that end was admissible." This can
be seen from the comments we quote above which clearly
show a Proudhonian influence in their recognition that
possession replaces property in a socialist society
and that associated labour is its economic basis. However,
it is still significant that Proudhon's analysis
initially provoked such praise by Marx -- an analysis
which McNally obviously does not understand.
It is true that Proudhon did oppose the socialisation
of artisan and peasant workplaces. He considered having
control over the means of production, housing, etc. by
those who use it as a key means of maintaining freedom
and independence. However, Proudhon also called for
"democratically organised workers' associations" to
run large-scale industry in his 1848 Election Manifesto.
[No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 62] This aspect of his
ideas is continual throughout his political works and
played a central role in his social theory. Thus to say that
Proudhon "glorified" "individual property" distorts
his position. And as the experience of workers under
Lenin indicates, collective ownership by the state
does not end wage labour, exploitation and oppression.
Proudhon's arguments in favour of possession and
against capitalist and state ownership were proven
right by Bolshevik Russia --state ownership did lead to "more
wage slavery." [Ibid.] As the forced collectivisation
of the peasantry under Stalin shows, Proudhon's
respect for artisan/peasant possessions was a very
sensible and humane position to take. Unless McNally
supports the forced collectivisation of peasants and
artisans, Proudhon's solution is one of the few
positions a socialist can take.
Moving on from Proudhon, we discover even less support
for "individual property." Bakunin, for example, was
totally in favour of collective property and opposed
individual property in the means of life. As he put it,
"the land, the instruments of work and all other capital
[will] become the collective property of society and
by utilised only by the workers, in other words by the
agricultural and industrial associations." [Michael
Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 174] With regards
to peasants and artisans Bakunin desired voluntary
collectivisation. "In a free community," he argued,
"collectivism can only come about through the pressure
of circumstances, not by imposition from above but by
a free spontaneous movement from below." [Bakunin
on Anarchism, p. 200]). Thus, rather than being
a defender of "individual property" Bakunin was in
fact a supporter of collective property (as organised
in workers' associations and communes) and supported
peasant and artisan property only in the sense of being
against forced collectivisation (which would result
in "propelling [the peasants] into the camp of reaction."
[Op. Cit., p. 197]).
Hence Daniel Guerin's comments:
Similarly, while it is true that Proudhon did glorify the
patriarchal family, the same cannot be said of Bakunin. Unlike
Proudhon, Bakunin argued that "[e]qual rights must belong to
both men and women," that women must "become independent
and free to forge their own way of life" and that "[o]nly
when private property and the State will have been
abolished will the authoritarian juridical family
disappear." He opposed the "absolute domination of the
man" in marriage, urged "the full sexual freedom of women"
and argued that the cause of women's liberation was
"indissolubly tied to the common cause of all the
exploited workers -- men and women." [Bakunin on
Anarchism, pp. 396-7] Hardly what would be considered
as the glorification of the patriarchal family -- and
a position shared by Kropotkin, Malatesta, Berkman,
Goldman, Chomsky and Ward. Thus to state that "anarchism"
glorifies the patriarchal family simply staggers belief.
Only someone ignorant of both logic and anarchist theory
could make such an assertion. We could make similar
remarks with regards to the glorification of racism (as
Robert Graham points out "anti-semitism formed no part
of Proudhon's revolutionary programme." [Op. Cit., p. xxxvi]
The same can be said of Bakunin).
McNally now attempts to provide some evidence for his remarks.
He turns to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, "widely proclaimed 'the father
of anarchism.'" As he correctly notes, he was a "printer by vocation"
and that he "strongly opposed the emergence of capitalism in France."
However, McNally claims that Proudhon's "opposition to capitalism
was largely backward-looking in character" as he "did not look
forward to a new society founded upon communal property which
would utilise the greatest inventions of the industrial revolution.
Instead, Proudhon considered small, private property the basis of
his utopia. His was a doctrine designed not for the emerging working
class, but for the disappearing petit bourgeoisie of craftsmen,
small traders and rich peasants." Unfortunately McNally has got
his facts wrong. It is well known that this was not the case (which
is why McNally used the words "largely backward-looking" -- he is
aware of facts but instead downplays them).
If you look at Proudhon's writings, rather than what Marx and Engels
claimed he wrote, it will soon be discovered that Proudhon in
fact favoured collective ownership of large scale industry by
workers' associations. He argued for "the mines, canals, railways
handed over to democratically organised workers' associations . . .
We want these associations to 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] Three years later
he stressed that "[e]very industry, operation or enterprise which
by its nature requires the employment of a large number of workmen
of different specialities, is destined to become a society or
company of workers." [The General Idea of the Revolution, p. 216]
This argument for workers' self-management and collective ownership
follows on from his earlier comment in 1840 that "leaders" within
industry "must be chosen from the labourers by the labourers
themselves." [What is Property?, p. 414]
Rather than base his utopia on "small, private property" Proudhon
based it on the actual state of the French economy -- one marked
by both artisan and large-scale production. The later he desired
to see transformed into the collective property of workers'
associations and placed under workers' self-management. The
former, as it did not involve wage-labour, he supported as
being non-capitalist. Thus his ideas were aimed at both the
artisan and the appearing class of wage slaves. Moreover, rather
than dismiss the idea of large-scale industry in favour of "small,
private property" Proudhon argued that "[l]arge industry . . . come
to us by big monopoly and big property: it is necessary in the
future to make them rise from the [labour] association." [quoted
by K. Steven Vincent, Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican
Socialism, p. 156] As Vincent correctly summarises:
As can be seen, McNally distorts Proudhon's ideas on this question.
McNally correctly states that Proudhon "oppose[d] trade unions."
While it is true that Proudhon opposed strikes as counter-productive
as well as trade unions, this cannot be said of Bakunin, Kropotkin,
Goldman, and so on. Bakunin, for example, considered trade unions
as truest means of expressing the power of the working class and
strikes as a sign of their "collective strength." [The Basic
Bakunin, pp. 149-50] Why should Proudhon (the odd man out in
anarchist theory with regards to this issue) be taken as defining
that theory? Such an argument is simply dishonest and presents
a false picture of anarchist theory.
Next McNally states that Proudhon "violently opposed democracy"
and presents a series of non-referenced quotes to prove his case.
Such a technique is useful for McNally as it allows him quote
Proudhon without regard to when and where Proudhon made these
comments and the context in which they were made. It is well
known, for example, that Proudhon went through a reactionary
phrase roughly between 1852 and 1862 and so any quotes from this
period would be at odds with his anarchist works. As Daniel
Guerin notes:
"To take an example: in the second part of his career Proudhon's
thinking took a conservative turn." [Anarchism, p. 6]
Similarly, McNally fails to quote the many statements Proudhon
made in favour of democracy. Why should the anti-democratic quotes
represent anarchism and not the pro-democratic ones? Which ones
are more in line with anarchist theory and practice? Surely
the pro-democratic ones. Hence we find Proudhon arguing
that "[i]n democratising us, revolution has launched us
on the path of industrial democracy" and that his People's
Bank "embodies the financial and economic aspects of modern
democracy, that is, the sovereignty of the People, and
of the republican moto, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
We have already mentioned Proudhon's support for workers'
self-management of production and his People's Bank was
also democratic in nature -- "A committee of thirty
representatives shall be set up to see to the management
of the Bank . . . They will be chosen by the General
Meeting . . . [which] shall consist of not more than
one thousand nominees of the general body of associates
and subscribers . . . elected according to industrial
categories and in proportion to the number of subscribers
and representatives there are in each category."
[Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 63,
p. 75 and p. 79] Thus, instead of bourgeois democracy
Proudhon proposes industrial and communal democracy:
"If political right is inherent in man and citizen, consequently
if suffrage ought to be direct, the same right is inherent as
well, so much the more so, for each corporation [i.e. self-managed
industry], for each commune or city, and the suffrage in each
of these groups, ought to be equally direct." [quoted by K.
Steven Vincent, Op. Cit.,
p. 219]
"In order that the association may be real, he who participates
in it must do so . . . as an active factor; he must have a
deliberative voice in the council . . . everything regarding
him, in short, should be regulated in accordance with equality.
But these conditions are precisely those of the organisation
of labour." [quoted by K.
Steven Vincent, Op. Cit., pp. 155-6]
Do these quotes suggest a man "violently opposed [to] democracy"?
Of course not. Nor does McNally quote Proudhon when he stated
that "[b]esides universal suffrage and as a consequence of
universal suffrage, we want implementation of the binding
mandate. Politicians bulk at it! Which means that in their
eyes, the people, in electing representatives, do not
appoint mandatories but rather abjure their sovereignty!
That is assuredly not socialism: it is not even democracy."
He also supported freedom of association, assembly, religion,
of the press and of thought and speech. [No Gods, No Masters,
vol. 1, p. 63] Nor does McNally note Proudhon's aim of (and use of
the term) "industrial democracy" which would be "a reorganisation
of industry, under the jurisdiction of all those who compose it."
[quoted by Vincent, Op. Cit., p. 225] As can be seen, Proudhon's
position on democracy is not quite what McNally suggests.
Thus McNally presents a distorted picture of Proudhon's ideas
and thus leads the reader to conclusions about anarchism
violently at odds with its real nature. It is somewhat ironic
that McNally attacks Proudhon for being anti-democratic. After
all, as we indicate in section 8
below, the Leninist tradition
in which he places himself has a distinct contempt for democracy
and, in practice, destroyed it in favour of party dictatorship.
Lastly, McNally states that Proudhon "opposed emancipation for
the American blacks and backed the cause of the southern slave
owners during the American Civil War." In fact, the American Civil
War had very little to do with slavery and far more to do with
conflicts within the US ruling class. Proudhon opposed the North
simply because he feared the centralisation that such a victory
would create. He did not "tolerate" slavery. As he wrote in
The Principle of Federation "the enslavement of part of a
nation denies the federal principle itself." [p. 42f] Moreover,
what are we to draw from Proudhon's position with regards the
American Civil War about anarchism? Bakunin supported the North
(a fact unmentioned by McNally). Why is Proudhon's position an
example of anarchism in practice and not Bakunin's? Could it
be that rather than attack anarchism, McNally attacks anarchists?
Also, it is somewhat ironic that McNally mentions Proudhon's "support"
for the South as the Leninist tradition he places his own politics is
renown for supporting various dictatorships during wars. For example,
during the Vietnam war the various Leninist groups called for victory
to North Vietnam, a Stalinist dictatorship. During the Gulf War, they
called for victory to Iraq, another dictatorship. In other words,
they "tolerated" and "supported" anti-working class regimes, dictatorships
and repression of democracy. They stress that they do not politically
support these regimes, rather they wish these states to win in order to
defeat the greater evil of imperialism. In practice, of course, such
a division is hard to defend -- for a state to win a war it must repress
its own working class and so, in calling for a victory for a dictatorship,
they must support the repression and actions that state requires to win
the war. After all, an explosion of resistance, class struggle and revolt
in the "lesser imperialist power" will undermine its war machine and so
lead to its defeat. Hence the notion that such calls do not mean support
for the regime is false. Hence McNally's comments against Proudhon smack
of hypocrisy -- his political tradition have done similar things and
sided with repressive dictatorships during wars in the name of political
aims and theory. In contrast, anarchists have consistently raised the
idea of "No war but the class war" in such conflicts
(see section A.3.4).
McNally then moves on to Bakunin whom he states "shared most of
Proudhon's views." The truth is somewhat different. Unlike Proudhon,
Bakunin supported trade unions and strikes, equality for women,
revolution and far more extensive collectivisation of property.
In fact, rather than share most of his views, Bakunin disagreed
with Proudhon on many subjects. He did share Proudhon's support
for industrial self-management, self-organisation in self-managed
workers' associations from below, his hatred of capitalism and
his vision of a decentralised, libertarian socialist society. It
is true that, as McNally notes, "Bakunin shared [Proudhon's]
anti-semitism" but he fails to mention Marx and Engels' many
racist remarks against Slavs and other peoples. Also it is not
true that Bakunin "was a Great Russian
chauvinist convinced that the Russians were ordained to lead
humanity into anarchist utopia." Rather, Bakunin (being Russian)
hoped Russia would have a libertarian revolution, but he also
hoped the same for France, Spain, Italy and all countries in
Europe (indeed, the world). Rather than being a "Great Russian
chauvinist" Bakunin opposed the Russian Empire (he wished "the
destruction of the Empire of All the Russias" [The Basic Bakunin,
p. 162]) and supported national liberation struggles of
nationalities oppressed by Russia (and any other imperialist
nation).
McNally moves on to Bakunin's on revolutionary organisation
methods, stating that they "were overwhelmingly elitist and
authoritarian." We have discussed this question in some detail
in section J.3.7 (Doesn't Bakunin's
"Invisible Dictatorship"
prove that anarchists are secret authoritarians?) and so
will not do so here. However, we should point out that Bakunin's
viewpoints on the organisational methods of mass working class
organisations and those of political groupings were somewhat
different.
The aim of the political grouping was to exercise a "natural
influence" on the members of working class unions and
associations, seeking to convince them of the validity
of anarchist ideas. The political group did not aim to seize
political power (unlike Marxists) and so it "rule[d] out any
idea of dictatorship and custodial control." Rather the
"revolution would 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 below upwards by means of revolutionary
delegation." All the political group could do was to "assist
the birth of the revolution by sowing ideas corresponding
to the instincts of the masses . . . [and act] as
intermediaries between the revolutionary idea and the
popular instinct." The political group thus "help[s] the
people towards self-determination on the lines of the
most complete equality and the fullest freedom in every
direction, without the least interference from any sort
of domination." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings,
p. 172 and p. 191]
As regards the forms of popular organisations Bakunin
favoured, he was clear it would be based on "factory,
artisan, and agrarian sections" and their federations
[Statism and Anarchy, p. 51]. In other words, trade
unions organised from the bottom up and based upon
self-management in "general membership meetings . . .
[i.e.] popular assembles . . . [where] the items on
the agenda were amply discussed and the most progressive
opinion prevailed." The "federative alliance of all
the workers' associations . . . will constitute the
commune . . . [with] deputies invested with imperative,
always responsible, and always revocable mandates."
[Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 247 and p. 153]
Given McNally's praise of the Paris Commune and the Russian
soviets, it seems strange that Bakunin's comments with
regards to revolutionary social organisation with its
obvious parallels to both should not be mentioned by
McNally. Perhaps because to do so would totally undermine
his case? Thus rather than being "overwhelmingly elitist
and authoritarian" Bakunin's ideas on a future society
bar marked similarities to the actual structures created
by working people in struggle and are marked by libertarian
and self-managed visions and concepts -- as anyone familiar
with Bakunin's work would know.
McNally then quotes "one historian" on Bakunin (not even providing
a name makes evaluating the accuracy of the historian's work
impossible and so leaves the reader in the dark as to whether
the historian does provide a valid account of Bakunin's ideas).
The unnamed author states that:
However, as we argue in section J.3.7,
this description of
Bakunin's secret societies is so distorted as to be useless.
To point to just two examples, the historian T.R. Ravindranathan
indicates that after the Alliance was founded "Bakunin wanted the
Alliance to become a branch of the International [Worker's
Association] and at the same time preserve it as a secret
society. The Italian and some French members wanted the Alliance
to be totally independent of the IWA and objected to Bakunin's
secrecy. Bakunin's view prevailed on the first question as he
succeeded in convincing the majority of the harmful effects
of a rivalry between the Alliance and the International. On
the question of secrecy, he gave way to his opponents. . ."
[Bakunin and the Italians, p. 83] Moreover, the Spanish
section of the Alliance "survived Bakunin . . . yet with
few exceptions it continued to function in much the same
way as it had done during Bakunin's lifetime." [George
R. Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology and the Working Class
Movement in Spain, p. 43] Hardly what you would expect if
McNally's vision was accurate.
In summary, McNally's comments are a distortion of Bakunin's
ideas and activities. McNally represents a distorted picture
of one aspect of Bakunin's ideas while ignoring those aspects
which support working class self-organisation and
self-management.
After chronicling the failings and distorting the facts of two
individuals, McNally tries to generalise. "These characteristics
of Bakunin and Proudhon," he argues, "were not mere quirks of
personality. Their elitism, authoritarianism and support for
backward-looking and narrow-minded causes are rooted in the
very nature of anarchist doctrine." Thus McNally claims that
these failings of Proudhon and Bakunin are not personal failings
but rather political. They represent the reactionary core of
anarchist politics. However, his position leaves something to
be desired. For example, the question remains, however, why,
say, Proudhon's support of the South during the American Civil War
is an example of "anarchist doctrine" while Bakunin's support of
the North is not. Or why Proudhon's opposition to trade unions
and strikes is an example of "anarchist doctrine" while Bakunin's
(and Kropotkin's, Malatesta's, Berkman's, Goldman's, etc) support
for strikes and union organisation is not. Or why Proudhon's sexism
is another example but Bakunin's, Kropotkin's, Goldman's, Malatesta's,
et al support for women's equality is not. Indeed, rather than take
examples which are common to anarchist theorists McNally takes only
those positions held by one, at most two, major anarchist thinkers
(positions tangential to the core of their ideas and, indeed,
directly opposed to them). From this minority of examples he
generalises a theory -- and so violates the basic principles of
the scientific method!
These examples in themselves prove the weakness of McNally's claims
and the low levels of scholarship which lay behind them. Indeed, it
is amazing that the SWP/ISO printed this diatribe -- it obviously
shows their contempt for facts, history and the intelligence of
their desired audience.
McNally goes onto assert the following:
We have already refuted the claim that the "early anarchists
feared the organised power of the modern working class." We
will now indicate why McNally is wrong to claim that anarchists
express "hostility to democratic and collectivist practices."
As indicated above Proudhon supported collective ownership
and management of large-scale workplaces (i.e. those which
employ wage-slaves under capitalism). Thus he clearly was
in favour of economic direct democracy and collective decision
making by groups of workers. Similarly, Bakunin also supported
workers' productive associations like co-operatives and
envisioned a free society as being based on workers' collective
ownership and the self-management of production by the workers
themselves. In addition, he supported trade unions and saw
the future society as being based on federations of workers'
associations. To claim that anarchists are hostile to democratic
and collectivist practices is simply not true. As would be clear
to anyone reading their works.
McNally then asserts that "[t]o this day, most anarchists defend
the 'liberty' of the private individual against the democratically
made decisions of collective groups." Here McNally takes a grain
of truth to create a lie. Yes, anarchists do defend the liberty
of individuals to rebel against the decisions of collective groups
(we should point out that Marxists usually use such expressions
as a euphemism for the state, but here we will take it at face
value). Why? For two reasons. Firstly, the majority is not always
right. Secondly, simply because progress is guaranteed by individual
liberty -- by dissent. That is what McNally is attacking here --
the right of individuals and groups to dissent, to express themselves
and live their own lives.
As we argue in section A.2.11,
most anarchists are in favour of
direct democracy in free associations. However, we agree with
Carole Pateman when she argues:
Thus, for anarchists, a democracy which does not involve individual
rights to dissent, to disagree and to practice civil disobedience
would violate freedom and equality, the very values McNally claims
to be at the heart of Marxism. He is essentially arguing that the
minority becomes the slave of the majority -- with no right of dissent
when the majority is wrong. In effect, he wishes the minority to
be subordinate, not equal, to the majority. Anarchists, in contrast,
because they support self-management also recognise the importance
of dissent and individuality -- in essence, because they are in
favour of self-management ("democracy" does not do the concept
justice) they also favour the individual freedom that is its
rationale. We support the liberty of private individuals because
we believe in self-management ("democracy") so passionately.
Simply put, Marxism (as McNally presents it here) flies in the face
of how societies change and develop. New ideas start with individuals
and minorities and spread by argument and by force of example. McNally
is urging the end of free expression of individuality. For example,
who would seriously defend a society that "democratically" decided
that, say, homosexuals should not be allowed the freedom to associate
freely? Or that inter-racial marriage was against "Natural Law"? Or
that socialists were dangerous subversives and should be banned?
He would, we hope (like all sane people), recognise the rights of
individuals to rebel against the majority when the majority violate
the spirit of association, the spirit of freedom and equality
which should give democracy its rationale.
Indeed, McNally fails to understand the rationale for democratic
decision making -- it is not based on the idea that the majority
is always right but that individual freedom requires democracy to
express and defend itself. By placing the collective above the
individual, McNally undermines democracy and replaces it with
little more than tyranny by the majority (or, more likely, those
who claim to represent the majority).
If we take McNally's comments seriously then we must conclude
that those members of the German (and other) Social Democratic Party
who opposed their party's role in supporting the First World War
were acting in inappropriately. Rather than express their opposition
to the war and act to stop it, according to McNally's "logic"
they should have remained in their party (after all, leaving
the party meant ignoring the democratic decision of a collective
group!), accepted the democratic decision of collective groups and
supported the Imperialist slaughter in the name of democracy. Of
course, McNally would reject such a position -- in this case the
rights of minorities take precedence over the "democratic decisions
of collectives." This is because the majority is not always right
and it is only through the dissent of individuals and minorities
that the opinion of the majority can be moved towards the right one.
Thus his comments are fallacious.
Progress is determined by those who dissent and rebel against the
status quo and the decisions of the majority. That is why anarchists
support the right of dissent in self-managed groups -- in fact,
as we argue in section A.2.11,
dissent, refusal, revolt by
individuals and minorities is a key aspect of self-management.
Given that Leninists do not support self-management (rather they,
at best, support the Lockean notion of electing a government as
being "democracy") it is hardly surprising they, like Locke, views
dissent as a danger and something to denounce. Anarchists, on
the other hand, recognising that self-management's (i.e. direct
democracy) rationale and base is in individual freedom, recognise
and support the rights of individuals to rebel against what they
consider as unjust impositions. As history shows, the anarchist
position is the correct one -- without rebellion, numerous
minorities would never have improved their position. Indeed,
McNally's comments is just a reflection of the standard capitalist
diatribe against strikers and protestors -- they don't need to
protest, for they live in a "democracy."
So, yes, anarchists do support individual freedom to resist even
democratically made decisions simply because democracy has to be
based on individual liberty. Without the right of dissent, democracy
becomes a joke and little more than a numerical justification
for tyranny. Thus McNally's latter claim that the "challenge is
to restore to socialism its democratic essence, its passionate
concern with human freedom" seems farcical -- after all, he has
just admitted that Marxism aims to eliminate individual freedom
in favour of "collective groups" (i.e. the government). Unless
of course he means freedom for the abstraction "humanity" rather
than concrete freedom of the individual to govern themselves
as individuals and as part of freely joined self-managed
associations? For those who really seek to restore to socialism
its passionate concern for freedom the way it clear -- anarchism.
Hence Murray Bookchin's comments:
Anarchism, on the other hand, favours freedom for people and
that implies two things -- individual freedom and self-management
(direct democracy) in free associations. Any form of "democracy"
not based on individual freedom would be so contradictory as to
be useless as a means to human freedom (and vice versa, any form
of "individual freedom" -- such a liberalism -- which denies
self-management would be little more than a justification for
minority rule and a denial of human freedom).
Ultimately, McNally's attack on anarchism fails simply because
the majority is not always right and dissent a key to progress.
That he forgets these basic facts of life indicates the depths
to which Marxists will sink to distort the truth about anarchism.
Not that those in the Bolshevik tradition have any problem with
individuals ignoring the democratic decisions of collective groups.
The Bolsheviks were very happy to let individuals ignore and
revoke the democratic decisions of collective groups -- as long
as the individuals in question were the leaders of the Bolshevik
Party. As the examples we provide later (in
section 8) indicate,
leading lights in the Leninist tradition happily placed the rights
of the party before the rights of working people to decide their
own fate.
Thus McNally comments are strange in the extreme. Both anarchists
and Leninists share a belief that individuals can and should have
the right to ignore decisions made by groups. However, Leninists
seem to think only the government and leadership of the Party
should have that right while anarchists think all should.
Unlike the egalitarian support for freedom and dissent for all
anarchists favour, Leninists have an elitist support for the right
of those in power to ignore the wishes of those they govern. Thus
the history of Marxists parties in power expose McNally as a
hypocrite. As we argue in
section 14, Marxist ideology provides
the rationale for such action.
Moreover, in spite of McNally's claim that the Leninist tradition
is democratic we find Lenin arguing that the "irrefutable
experience of history has shown that . . . the dictatorship
of individual persons was often the vehicle, the channel of
the dictatorship of the revolutionary classes." [quoted by
Maurice Brintin, The Bolsheviks and Workers Control, p. 40]
Such a comment is not an isolated one, as we indicate in
section 8
and indicates well the anti-democratic nature of
the tradition McNally places himself in. Thus McNally's attempt
to portray anarchism as "anti-democratic" is somewhat ironic.
And we must note, as well as refuting McNally's claim that Leninism
is a democratic tradition, Lenin's comments display a distinct
confusion over the nature of a social revolution (rather than
a political one). Yes, previous revolutions may have utilised
the dictatorship of individuals but these revolutions have been
revolutions from one class system to another. The "revolutionary"
classes in question were minority classes and so elite rule
would not in any way undermine their class nature. Not so with
a socialist revolution which must be based on mass participation
(in every aspect of society, economic, political, social) if it
is too achieve its goals -- namely a classless society. Little
wonder, with such theoretical confusion, that the Russian
revolution ended in Stalinism -- the means uses determined the
ends (see sections 13
and 14 for more discussion of this point).
McNally then states that anarchists "oppose even the most democratic
forms of collective organisation of social life. As the Canadian
anarchist writer George Woodcock explains: 'Even were democracy
possible, the anarchist would still not support it . . . Anarchists
do not advocate political freedom. What they advocate is freedom from
politics . . .' That is to say, anarchists reject any decision-making
process in which the majority of people democratically determine the
policies they will support."
First, we must point out a slight irony in McNally's claim. The
irony is that Marxists usually claim that they seek a society
similar to that anarchists seek. In the words of Marx:
So, Marxists and anarchists seek the same society, one of
individual freedom. Hence McNally's comments about anarchism
also apply (once the state "withers away", which it never will)
to Marxism. But, of course, McNally fails to mention this
aspect of Marxism and its conflict with anarchism.
However, our comments above equally apply here. Anarchists are
not opposed to people in free associations democratically
determining the policies they will support (see
section A.2.11
for more details on this). What we do oppose is the assumption
that the majority is always right and that minorities should
submit to the decisions of the majority no matter how wrong
they are. We feel that history is on our side on this one -- it
is only by the freedom to dissent, by the direct action of
minorities to defend and extent their freedoms that society
progresses. Moreover, we feel that theory is on our side --
majority rule without individual and minority rights is
a violation of the principle of freedom and equality which
democracy is said to be built on.
Democracy should be an expression of individual liberty but in
McNally's hands it is turned into bourgeois liberalism. Little
wonder Marxism has continually failed to produce a free society.
It has no conception of the relationship of individual freedom
to democracy and vice versa.
McNally's attack on Proudhon (and anarchism in general) for
being "anti-democratic" is somewhat ironic. After all, the
Leninist tradition he places himself in did destroy democracy
in the workers' soviets and replaced it with party dictatorship.
Thus his attack on anarchism can be turned back on his politics,
with much more justification and evidence.
For example, in response to the "great Bolshevik losses in the soviet elections"
during the spring and summer of 1918 "Bolshevik armed force
usually overthrew the results of these provincial elections
. . . [In] the city of Izhevsk [for example] . . . in the May
election [to the soviet] the Mensheviks and SRs won a majority
. . . In June, these two parties also won a majority of the
executive committee of the soviet. At this point, the local
Bolshevik leadership refused to give up power . . . [and by
use of the military] abrogated the results of the May and
June elections and arrested the SR and Menshevik members
of the soviet and its executive committee." In addition,
"the government continually postponed the new general
elections to the Petrograd Soviet, the term of which had
ended in March 1918. Apparently, the government feared that
the opposition parties would show gains." [Samuel Farber,
Before Stalinism, pp. 23-4 and p. 22]
In the workplace, the Bolsheviks replaced workers'
economic democracy with "one-man management" selected
from above, by the state ("The elective principle
must now be replaced by the principle of selection"
-- Lenin). Trotsky did not consider this a result of the
Civil War -- "I consider if the civil war had not
plundered our economic organs of all that was strongest,
most independent, most endowed with initiative, we should
undoubtedly have entered the path of one-man management
in the sphere of economic administration much sooner
and much less painfully." [quoted by M. Brinton, The
Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 63 and pp. 66-7] He
pushed the ideas of "militarisation of labour" as well
as abolishing democratic forms of organisation in the
military (this later policy occurred before the start
of the Civil War -- as Trotsky put it, the "elective basis is
politically pointless and technically inexpedient and has
already been set aside by decree" [quoted by Brinton,
Op. Cit., pp.37-8]).
In May 1921, the All-Russian Congress of the Metalworkers'
Union met. The "Central Committee of the [Communist] Party
handed down to the Party faction in the union a list of
recommended candidates for union (sic!) leadership.
The metalworkers' delegates voted down the list, as did
the Party faction in the union . . . The Central Committee
of the Party disregarded every one of the votes and
appointed a Metalworkers' Committee of its own. So much
for 'elected and revocable delegates.' Elected by the
union rank and file and revocable by the Party leadership!"
[M. Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 83]
These are a few examples of Trotsky's argument that you
cannot place "the workers' right to elect representatives
above the party. As if the Party were not entitled to
assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship clashed
with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!" He
continued by stating the "Party is obliged to maintain
its dictatorship . . . regardless of temporary vacillations
even in the working class . . . The dictatorship does not
base itself at every moment on the formal principle of
a workers' democracy." [quoted by Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 78]
Thus, when in power, Trotsky did not "insist against all
odds that socialism was rooted in the struggle for human
freedom" as McNally claims he did in the 1930s and 1940s.
Rather, he thought that the "very principle of compulsory
labour is for the Communist quite unquestionable . . .
the only solution to economic difficulties from the point
of view of both principle and of practice is to
treat the population of the whole country as the
reservoir of the necessary labour power . . . and to
introduce strict order into the work of its registration,
mobilisation and utilisation." Can human freedom be
compatible with the "introduction of compulsory labour
service [which] is unthinkable without the application
. . . of the methods of militarisation of labour"? Or when
the "working class cannot be left wandering round all over
Russia. They must be thrown here and there, appointed,
commanded, just like soldiers." [Op. Cit., p. 66 and p. 61]
Of course McNally tries to blame the destruction of democracy
in Russia on the Civil War but, as indicated above, the
undermining of democracy started before the civil war
started and continued after it had finished. The claim that
the "working class" had been destroyed by the war cannot
justify the fact that attempts by working class people to
express themselves were systematically undermined by the
Bolshevik party. Nor does the notion of an "exhausted" or
"disappeared" working class make much sense when
"in the early part of
1921, a spontaneous strike movement . . . took place in
the industrial centres of European Russia" and
strikes involving around 43 000 per year took place between 1921 and
1925. [Samuel Farber, Op. Cit., p. 188 and p. 88] While
it is undeniable that the working class was reduced in numbers
because of the civil war, it cannot be said to have been totally
"exhausted" and, obviously, did survive the war and was more
than capable of collective action and decision making. Strikes,
as Bakunin argued, "indicate a certain collective strength"
and so rather than there being objective reasons for the
lack of democracy under Lenin we can suggest political
reasons -- the awareness that, given the choice, the
Russian working class would have preferred someone else
in power!
Also, we must point out a certain ingenuity in McNally's comments
that Stalinism can be explained purely by the terrible civil
war Russia experienced. After all, Lenin himself stated that
every "revolution . . ., in its development, would give rise
to exceptionally complicated circumstances" and "[r]evolution
is the sharpest, most furious, desperate class war and civil
war. Not a single great revolution in history has escaped civil
war. No one who does not live in a shell could imagine that civil
war is conceivable without exceptionally complicated circumstances."
[Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?, p. 80 and p. 81] Thus
McNally's assertion that for "the germ cell of socialism to grow
[in Russia], it required several essential ingredients. One was
peace. The new workers' state could not establish a thriving
democracy so long as it was forced to raise an army and wage
war to defend itself" is simply incredible. It also raises an
important question with regards Leninist ideas. If the Bolshevik
political and organisational form cannot survive during a period
of disruption and complicated circumstances then it is clearly a
theory to be avoided at all costs.
Therefore, in practice, Leninism has proven to be profoundly
anti-democratic. As we argue in sections
13 and 14 this is due
to their politics -- the creation of a "strong government and
centralism" will inevitably lead to a new class system being
created [Lenin, Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?, p. 75]
This is not necessarily because Leninists seek dictatorship
for themselves. Rather it is because of the nature of the
state machine. In the words of Murray Bookchin:
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 way 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. Moreover, as indicated in
section 14, their idea of the party being the "vanguard" of the
working class, combined with its desire for centralised power,
makes the dictatorship of the party over the proletariat
inevitable.
After slandering anarchism, McNally turns towards another form of
libertarian socialism, namely syndicalism. It is worth quoting him
in full as his comments are truly ridiculous. He states that there
is "another trend which is sometimes associated with anarchism. This
is syndicalism. The syndicalist outlook does believe in collective
working class action to change society. Syndicalists look to trade
union action -- such as general strikes -- to overthrow capitalism.
Although some syndicalist viewpoints share a superficial similarity
with anarchism -- particularly with its hostility to politics and
political action -- syndicalism is not truly a form of anarchism.
By accepting the need for mass, collective action and decision-making,
syndicalism is much superior to classical anarchism."
What is ridiculous about McNally's comments is that all serious
historians who study the links between anarchism and syndicalism
agree that Bakunin (for want of a better expression) is the
father of syndicalism (see section
J.3.8 -- indeed, many writers
point to syndicalist aspects in Proudhon's ideas as well but
here we concentrate on Bakunin)! Bakunin looked to trade union
action (including the general strike) as the means of overthrowing
capitalism and the state. Thus Arthur Lehning's comment that
"Bakunin's collectivist anarchism . . . ultimately formed the
ideological and theoretical basis of anarcho-syndicalism"
is totally true and indicative. ["Introduction", Michael
Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 29] As is Rudolf Rocker's:
Little wonder, then, we discover Caroline Cahm pointing out
"the basic syndicalist ideas of Bakunin" and that he "argued
that trade union organisation and activity in the International
[Working Men's Association] were important in the building
of working-class power in the struggle against capital . . .
He also declared that trade union based organisation of the
International would not only guide the revolution but also
provide the basis for the organisation of the society of
the future." Indeed, he "believed that trade unions had an
essential part to play in the developing of revolutionary
capacities of the workers as well as building up the
organisation of the masses for revolution." [Kropotkin
and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, p. 219, p. 215
and p. 216] Cahm quotes Bakunin on the role of the general
strike:
Or George R. Esenwein's comment that syndicalism "had deep
roots in the Spanish libertarian tradition. It can be traced
to Bakunin's revolutionary collectivism." He also notes that
the class struggle was "central to Bakunin's theory."
[Op. Cit., p. 209 and p. 20]
Perhaps, in the face of such evidence (and the writings of
Bakunin himself), Marxists like McNally could claim that
the sources we quote are either anarchists or "sympathetic"
to anarchism. To counter this we will quote Marx and Engels.
According to Marx Bakunin's theory consisted of urging
the working class to "only organise themselves by
trades-unions" and "not occupy itself with politics."
Engels asserted that in the "Bakuninist programme a general
strike is the lever employed by which the social revolution
is started" and that they admitted "this required a
well-formed organisation of the working class" (i.e. a
trade union federation). [Marx, Engels and Lenin,
Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 48, p. 132
and p. 133] Ignoring the misrepresentations of Marx and
Engels about the theories of their enemies, we can state
that they got the basic point of Bakunin's ideas -- the
centrality of trade union organisation and struggle as
well as the use of strikes and the general strike.
(As an aside, ironically enough, Engels distorted diatribe
against Bakunin and the general strike was later used against
more radical Marxists like Rosa Luxemburg -- usually claimed
by Leninists as part of their tradition -- by the reformists
in Social Democratic Parties. For orthodox Marxists, the
mass strike was linked to anarchism and Engels had proven
that only political action -- i.e. electioneering -- could
lead to working class emancipation.)
Thus, according to McNally, "syndicalism" (i.e. Bakunin's ideas)
is "much superior to classical anarchism" (i.e. Bakunin's ideas)!
How spurious McNally's argument actually is can be seen from his
comments about syndicalism and its relation to anarchism.
His last argument against syndicalism is equally flawed. He
states that "by rejecting the idea of working class political
action, syndicalism has never been able to give real direction
to attempts by workers to change society." However, syndicalists
(like all anarchists) are clear what kind of politics they
reject -- bourgeois politics (i.e. the running of candidates
in elections). It is worth quoting Rudolf Rocker at length on
McNally's claim:
"The attitude of Anarcho-Syndicalism toward the political power of the
present-day state is exactly the same as it takes toward the system of
capitalist exploitation. . . [and so] Anarcho-Syndicalists pursue the
same tactics in their fight against that political power which finds
its expression in the state. . .
"For just as the worker cannot be indifferent to the economic conditions
of his life in existing society, so he cannot remain indifferent to the
political structure of his country. . . It is, therefore, utterly
absurd to assert that the Anarcho-Syndicalists take no interest in
the political struggles of the time. . . But the point of attack in
the political struggle lies, not in the legislative bodies, but in
the people. . . If they, nevertheless, reject any participation in
the work of bourgeois parliaments, it is not because they have no
sympathy with political struggles in general, but because they are
firmly convinced that parliamentary activity is for the workers the very
weakest and the most hopeless form of the political struggle. . .
"But, most important of all, practical experience has shown that the
participation of the workers in parliamentary activity cripples their
power of resistance and dooms to futility their warfare against the
existing system. . .
"Anarcho-Syndicalists, then, are not in any way opposed to the political
struggle, but in their opinion this struggle, too, must take the form of
direct action, in which the instruments of economic power which the working
class has at its command are the most effective. . .
"The focal point of the political struggle lies, then, not in the political
parties, but in the economic fighting organisations of the workers. It as
the recognition of this which impelled the Anarcho-Syndicalists to centre
all their activity on the Socialist education of the masses and on the
utilisation of their economic and social power. Their method is that of
direct action in both the economic and the political struggles of the time.
That is the only method which has been able to achieve anything at all in
every decisive moment in history." [Op. Cit., pp. 63-66]
Rocker's work, Anarcho-Syndicalism, was written in 1938 and is
considered the standard introduction to that theory. McNally wrote his
pamphlet in the 1980s and did not bother to consult the classic
introduction to the ideas he claims to be refuting. That in itself
indicates the worth of his pamphlet and any claims it has for
being remotely accurate with respect to anarchism and syndicalism.
Thus syndicalists do reject working class "political action"
only if you think "political action" means simply bourgeois
politics -- that is, electioneering, standing candidates for
Parliament, local town councils and so on. It does not reject
"political action" in the sense of direct action to effect
political changes and reforms. As syndicalists Ford and Foster
argue, syndicalists use "the term 'political action' . . . in
its ordinary and correct sense. Parliamentary action resulting
from the exercise of the franchise is political action.
Parliamentary action caused by the influence of direct action
tactics . . . is not political action. It is simply a
registration of direct action." They also note that
syndicalists "have proven time and again that they can
solve the many so-called political questions by direct
action." [Earl C. Ford and William Z. Foster, Syndicalism,
p. 19f and p. 23]
A historian of the British syndicalist movement reiterates this
point:
As we argued in section J.2.10,
anarchist support for direct
action and opposition to taking part in elections does not
mean we are "apolitical" or reject political action. Anarchists
have always been clear -- we reject "political action" which
is bourgeois in nature in favour of "political action" based
on the organisations, action and solidarity of working class
people. This is because electioneering corrupts those who
take part, watering down their radical ideas and making them
part of the system they were meant to change.
And history has proven the validity of our anti-electioneering
ideas. For example, as we argue in
section J.2.6, the net result
of the Marxists use of electioneering ("political action") was
the de-radicalising of their movement and theory and its becoming
yet another barrier to working class self-liberation. Rather than
syndicalism not giving "real direction to attempts by workers to
change society" it was Marxism in the shape of Social Democracy
which did that. Indeed, at the turn of twentieth century more
and more radicals turned to Syndicalism and Industrial Unionism
as the means of by-passing the dead-weight of Social Democracy
(i.e. orthodox Marxism), its reformism, opportunism and its
bureaucracy. As Lenin once put it, anarchism "was not infrequently
a kind of penalty for the opportunist sins of the working-class
movement." [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and
Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 305]
Lenin's claim that anarchist and syndicalist support in
the working class is the result of the opportunist nature
of the Social Democratic Parties has an element of truth.
Obviously militants sick to death of the reformist, corrupt
and bureaucratic "working class" parties will seek a
revolutionary alternative and find libertarian socialism.
However, Lenin seeks to explain the symptoms (opportunism)
and not the disease itself (Parliamentarianism) . Nowhere
does Lenin see the rise of "opportunist" tendencies in
the Marxist parties as the result of the tactics and
organisational struggles they used. Indeed, Lenin desired
the new Communist Parties to practice electioneering
("political action") and work within the trade unions
to capture their leadership positions. Anarchists rather
point out that given the nature of the means, the ends
surely follow. Working in a bourgeois environment
(Parliament) will result in bourgeoisifying and
de-radicalising the party. Working in a centralised
environment will empower the leaders of the party over
the members and lead to bureaucratic tendencies.
In other words, as Bakunin predicted, using bourgeois
institutions will corrupt "revolutionary" and radical
parties and tie the working class to the current system.
Lenin's analysis of anarchist influence as being the
off-spring of opportunist tendencies in mainstream
parties may be right, but if so its a natural development
as the tactics supported by Marxists inevitably lead to
opportunist tendencies developing. Thus, what Lenin could
not comprehend was that opportunism was the symptom and
electioneering was the disease -- using the same means
(electioneering) with different parties/individuals
("Communists" instead of "Social Democrats") and thinking
that opportunism would not return was idealistic nonsense
in the extreme.
McNally claims that Marx "was the first major socialist thinker
to make the principle of self-emancipation -- the principle that
socialism could only be brought into being by the self-mobilisation
and self-organisation of the working class -- a fundamental aspect
of the socialist project." This is not entirely true. Proudhon
in 1848 had argued 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] Thus, working class people must organise
themselves for their own liberation:
While Proudhon placed his hopes in reformist tendencies (such
as workers' co-operatives and mutual banks) he clearly argued
that "the proletariat must emancipate itself." Marx's use of the
famous expression -- "the emancipation of the working class is
the task of the working class itself" -- dates from 1865, 17
years after Proudhon's comment that "the proletariat must
emancipate itself." As K. Steven Vincent correctly summarises:
Indeed, as Libertarian Marxist Paul Mattick points out, Marx was
not even the first person to use the expression "the emancipation
of the working class is the task of the working class itself."
Flora Tristan used it in 1843. [Marx and Keynes, p. 333] Thus
a case could be made that Marx was, in fact, the third "major
socialist thinker to make the principle of self-emancipation --
the principle that socialism could only be brought into being
by the self-mobilisation and self-organisation of the working
class -- a fundamental aspect of the socialist project."
Similarly, Bakunin continually quoted Marx's (and so Tristan's)
words from the Preamble to the General Rules of the First
International -- "That the emancipation of the workers must be
accomplished by the workers themselves." [The Basic Bakunin,
p. 92] Far more than Marx, Bakunin argued that workers' can only
free themselves by a "single path, that of emancipation through
practical action" namely "workers' solidarity in their
struggle against the bosses" by trades unions and solidarity.
The "collective experience" workers gain in the International
combined with the "collective struggle of the workers
against the bosses" will ensure workers "will necessarily
come to realise that there is an irreconcilable antagonism
between the henchmen of reaction and [their] own dearest
human concerns. Having reached this point, [they] will
recognise [themselves] to be a revolutionary socialist."
[Op. Cit., p. 103] In contrast Marx placed his hopes for
working class self-emancipation on a political party
which would conquer "political power." As history soon
proved, Marx was mistaken -- "political power" can only
be seized by a minority (i.e. the party, not the class
it claims to represent) and if the few have the power,
the rest are no longer free (i.e. they no longer govern
themselves). That the many elect the few who issue them
orders does not signify emancipation!
However, this is beside the point. McNally proudly places
his ideas in the Leninist tradition. It is thus somewhat
ironic that McNally claims that Marxism is based on
self-emancipation of the working class while claiming
Leninism as a form of Marxism. This it because Lenin
explicitly stated the opposite, namely that the working
class could not liberate itself by its own actions.
In What is to be Done? Lenin argued that "the working
class, exclusively by their own effort, is able to
develop only trade union consciousness . . . The theory
of socialism [i.e. Marxism], however, grew out of the
philosophic, historical and economic theories that
were elaborated by the educated representatives of the
propertied classes, the intellectuals . . . the
theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose quite
independently of the spontaneous growth of the labour
movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome
of ideas among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia."
This meant that "Social Democratic [i.e. socialist]
consciousness . . . could only be brought to them
from without." [Essential Works of Lenin, pp. 74-5]
Thus, rather than believe in working class self-emancipation,
Lenin thought the opposite. Without the radical bourgeois
to provide the working class with "socialist" ideas, a
socialist movement, let along society, was impossible. Hardly
what you would consider self-emancipation. Nor is this notion
of working class passivity confined to the "early" Lenin
of What is to Be Done? infamy. It can be found in his
apparently more "libertarian" work The State and Revolution.
In that work he argues "we do not indulge in 'dreams' of
dispensing at once . . . with all subordination; these
anarchist dreams . . . are totally alien to Marxism . . .
we want the socialist revolution with human nature as it is
now, with human nature that cannot dispense with subordination,
control and 'managers'" [Op. Cit., p. 307] No where is the
notion that working class people, during the process of
mass struggle, direct action and revolution, revolutionises
themselves (see sections A.2.7
and J.7.2, for example).
Instead, we find a vision of people as they are under
capitalism ("human nature as it is now") and no vision
of self-emancipation of the working class and the resulting
changes that implies for those who are transforming
society by their own action.
Perhaps it will be argued that Lenin sees "subordination"
as being "to the armed vanguard of all the exploited . . .
i.e., to the proletariat" [Ibid.] and so there is no
contradiction. However, this is not the case as he confuses
the rule of the party with the rule of the class. As he
states "[w]e cannot imagine democracy, not even proletarian
democracy, without representative institutions." [Op. Cit.,
p. 306] Thus "subordination" is not to the working class
itself (i.e. direct democracy or self-management). Rather
it is the "subordination" of the majority to the minority,
of the working class to "its" representatives. Thus we have
a vision of a "socialist" society in which the majority
have not revolutionised themselves and are subordinated
to their representatives. Such a subordination, however,
ensures that a socialist consciousness cannot develop
as only the process of self-management generates the
abilities required for self-management (as Malatesta
put it, "[o]nly freedom or the struggle for freedom can
be the school for freedom." [Life and Ideas, p. 59]).
Therefore McNally's comments that Leninism is a valid
expression of Marx's idea of proletarian self-emancipation
is false. In reality, Lenin rejected the idea that
working class people can emancipate themselves and,
therefore, any claim that this tradition stands for
proletarian self-emancipation is false. Rather Leninism,
for all its rhetoric, has no vision of working class
self-activity leading to self-liberation -- it denies
it can happen and that is why it stresses the role of
the party and its need to take centralised power into
its own hands (of course, it never entered Lenin's mind
that if bourgeois ideology imposes itself onto the
working class it also imposes itself on the party as
well -- more so as they are bourgeois intellectuals
in the first place).
While anarchists are aware of the need for groups of
like minded individuals to influence the class struggle
and spread anarchist ideas, we reject the idea that
such ideas have to be "injected" into the working class
from outside. Rather, as we argued in
section J.3,
anarchist ideas are developed within the class struggle
by working people themselves. Anarchist groups exist
because we are aware that there is an uneven development
of ideas within our class and to aid the spreading of
libertarian ideas it is useful for those with those
ideas to work together. However, being aware that our
ideas are the product of working class life and struggle
we are also aware that we have to learn from that
struggle. It is because of this that anarchists stress
self-management of working class struggle and organisation
from below. Anarchists are (to use Bakunin's words) "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." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 237]
Only when this happens can new ways of life be created
and truly develop freely. It also explains anarchist opposition
to political groups seizing power -- that will only result in
old dogmas crushing the initiative of people in struggle and
the new forms of life they create. That is way anarchists
stress the importance of revolutionaries using "natural
influence" (i.e. arguing their ideas in popular organisations
and convincing by reason) -- doing so allows new developments
and ideas to be expressed and enriched by existing ones and
vice versa.
One last point. It could be argued that Lenin's arguments were
predated by Marx and Engels and so Marxism as such rather
than just Leninism does not believe in proletarian
self-emancipation. This is because they wrote in The
Communist Manifesto that "a portion of the bourgeois goes
over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of
the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to
the level of comprehending theoretically the historical
movement as a whole." They also note that the Communists
are "the most advanced and resolute section of the
working-class parties . . . [and] they have over the
great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly
understanding the line of march, the conditions, and
the general results of the proletarian movement."
[Selected Works, p. 44 and p. 46] Thus a portion of
the bourgeois comprehend "the historical movement as a
whole" and this is also the "advantage" of the Communist
Party over "the great mass of the proletariat." Perhaps
Lenin's comments are not so alien to the Marxist tradition
after all.
Another ironic aspect of McNally's pamphlet is his praise for
the Paris Commune and the Russian Soviets. This is because key
aspects of both revolutionary forms were predicted by Proudhon
and Bakunin.
For example, McNally's and Marx's praise for revocable mandates
in the Commune was advocated by Proudhon in 1840s and Bakunin
in 1860s (see sections 4
and 5). Similarly, the Russian Soviets
(a federation of delegates from workplaces) showed a marked
similarity with Bakunin's discussions of revolutionary change
and the importance of industrial associations being the basis
of the future socialist commune. Moreover, in his letter to
Albert Richard Bakunin predicted many aspects of the Paris
Commune (see Bakunin on Anarchism, pp. 177-182). Indeed,
the Paris Commune (in both its economic and political aspects)
showed a clear inspiration from Proudhon's works. In the words
of George Woodcock, there are "demands in the Commune's
Manifesto to the French People of the 19th April, 1871,
that might have been written by Proudhon himself."
[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: A Biography, p. 276] K. Steven Vincent
also points out that the declaration "is strongly federalist
in tone [one of Proudhon's favourite ideas], and it has a
marked proudhonian flavour." [Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and
the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 232] Moreover,
the desire to replace wage labour with associated labour by
the creation of co-operatives expressed during the Commune
clearly showed the influence of Proudhon (see
section A.5.1
for more details).
Given that Marx described the Commune as "essentially a
working-class government" and as "the political form, at last
discovered, under which to work out the economic emancipation
of labour," it is strange that McNally terms Proudhon's and
Bakunin's ideas as those of the past. [Selected Writings,
p. 290] In actually, as can be seen from the Paris Commune
and the soviets, they were the ideas of the future -- and
of working class self-liberation and self-organisation. And
ones that Marx and his followers paid lip service to.
(We say lip service for Lenin quoted Marx's statement that
the future proletarian state, like the Paris Commune, would
abolish the distinction between executive and administrative
powers but did not honour it. Immediately after the October
Revolution the Bolsheviks established an executive power
above the soviets, namely the Council of People's Commissars.
Those who quote Lenin's State and Revolution as proof of
his democratic nature usually fail to mention this little
fact. In practice that work was little more than an election
manifesto to be broken as required.)
Perhaps it could be argued that, in fact, the Paris Commune
was the work of artisans. This does have an element of
truth in it. Marx stated in 1866 that the French workers
were "corrupted" by "Proudhonist" ideas,
"particularly those
of Paris, who as workers in luxury trades are strongly
attached, without knowing it [!], to the old rubbish."
[Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism,
pp. 45-6] Five years later, these workers (still obviously
influenced by "the old rubbish") created "the political form"
of "the economic emancipation of labour." How can the
Paris Commune be the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"
(as Engels claimed [Selected Writings, p. 259]) when
35 members of the Commune's council were artisans and
only 4 or 5 were industrial workers (i.e. proletarians)?
Can the fact that artisans were, according to McNally and Marx,
social strata of the past, were backward looking, etc. be
reconciled with the claim that the Paris Commune was the
political form of proletarian emancipation? No, not from a
Marxist class analysis. Hence Marxists ignoring the real nature
of the Parisian working class when discussing the commune.
However, from an anarchist perspective -- which sees the
artisan, peasant and proletariat forming a common class of
working people -- the development of the Paris Commune is no
surprise. It is the work of people seeking to end wage labour
and the threat of wage labour now rather than sometime in
the future once capitalism has fully developed. Thus McNally's
(and Marx's) support for the Commune makes a mockery of his
attacks on anarchism as the theory of the artisans and peasants
for it was the artisans who created the first model of their
"proletarian" state!
As indicated, McNally's arguments do not hold water. Ironically,
if anarchism was the death-cry of the artisan and peasant then
it is strange, to say the least, that this theory so influenced
the Paris Commune which McNally praises so much. We therefore
suggest that rather than being a backward-looking cry of
despair for those disappearing under the wheels of rising
capitalism, anarchism was in fact a theory developed from
the struggles and self-activity of those currently suffering
capitalist and state oppression -- namely the artisans,
peasants and industrial proletariat (i.e. the working
class as a whole). In other words, it is a philosophy and
theory for the future, not of the past. This can be seen
from the libertarian aspects of the Paris Commune, aspects
Marx immediately tried to appropriate for his own theories
(which, unfortunately, were swamped by the authoritarian
elements that existing already).
And one last point, McNally claims that Marx "immediately rallied
to the cause of the Paris Commune." This is not true. As John
Zerzan points out "[d]ays after the successful insurrection
began he failed to applaud its audacity, and satisfied himself
with grumbling that 'it had no chance of success.' Though he
finally recognised the fact of the Commune (and was thereby
forced to revise his reformist ideas regarding proletarian
use of existing state machinery), his lack of sympathy is
amply reflected by the fact that throughout the Commune's
two-month existence, the General Council of the International
spoke not a single word about it . . . his Civil War in France
constitutes an obituary." [Elements of Refusal, p. 126]
Perhaps the delay was due to Marx wondering how Parisian
artisans had became the vanguard of the proletariat overnight
and how he could support a Commune created by the forces
of the past?
In addition the "old rubbish" the Parisian workers supported was
very much ahead of its time. In 1869 the delegate of the Parisian
Construction Workers' Trade Union argued that "[a]ssociation of
the different corporations [labour unions] on the basis of town
or country . . . leads to the commune of the future . . . Government
is replaced by the assembled councils of the trade bodies, and by
a committee of their respective delegates." In addition,
"a local
grouping which allows the workers in the same area to liase on
a day to day basis" and "a linking up of the various localities,
fields, regions, etc." (i.e. international trade or industrial
union federations) would ensure that "labour organises for present
and future by doing away with wage slavery." [No Gods, No
Masters, vol. 1, p. 184] Such a vision of workers' councils and associated
labour has obvious similarities with the spontaneously created
soviets of the 1905 Russian Revolution. These, too, were based
on assembled councils of workers' delegates. Of course they
were differences but the basic idea and vision are identical.
Therefore to claim that anarchism represents the past presents
Marxists with a few problems given the nature of the Paris
Commune and its obvious libertarian nature. If it is claimed
that the Parisian artisans defended "not their present, but their
future interests" and so "desert[ed] their own standpoint to place
themselves at that of the proletariat" (the class they are being
"tranfer[ed]" into by the rise of capitalism) then, clearly,
anarchist ideas are "future," proletarian, ideas as it is
that class interest artisans serve "[i]f by chance they are
revolutionary." [Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto,
p. 44]
Whichever way you look at it, McNally's claims on the class nature of
anarchism do not stand up to close analysis. Proudhon addressed
both artisan/peasant and wage slave in his works. He addressed
both the past and the present working class. Bakunin did
likewise (although with a stronger emphasis on wage slaves).
Therefore it is not surprising that Proudhon and Bakunin
predicted aspects of the Paris Commune -- they were expressing
the politics of the future. As is clear from their writings,
which still remain fresh today.
This confusion associated with Marxist "class analysis" of
anarchism was also present in Lenin. Given that anarchism
is apparently associated with the petty-bourgeois we find
a strange contradiction in Lenin's work. On the one hand
Lenin argued that Russia "despite the more petty-bourgeois
composition of her population as compared with the other
European countries" had, in fact, "negligible" anarchist
influence during the two revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
He claimed that this was due to Bolshevism's having
"waged a most ruthless and uncompromising struggle
against opportunism." [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Op. Cit.,
p. 305]
On the other he admitted that, in the developed capitalist
nations, anarchists and syndicalists were "quite revolutionary
and connected with the masses" and that it is "the duty of all
Communists to do everything to help all proletarian mass elements
to abandon anarchism . . . the measure in which genuinely
Communist parties succeed in winning mass proletarian
elements . . . away from anarchism, is a criterion of
the success of those Parties." [Op. Cit., pp. 317-8]
Thus, in the most capitalist nations, ones with a more
widespread and developed proletariat, the anarchist and
syndicalist movements were more firmly developed and
had closer connections with the masses than in Russia.
Moreover, these movements were also quite revolutionary
as well and should be won to Bolshevism. But anarchism
is the politics of the petit-bourgeois and so should
have been non-existent in Western countries but widespread
in Russia. The opposite was the case, thus suggesting
that Lenin's analysis is wrong.
We can point to another explanation of these facts. Rather
than the Bolsheviks "struggle against opportunism" being
the reason why anarchism was "negligible" in 1917-18 in
Russia (it was not, in fact) but had mass appeal in Western
Europe perhaps it was the fact that anarchism was a product
of working class struggle in advanced capitalist countries
while Bolshevism was a product of bourgeois struggle (for
Parliament, a liberal republic, etc.) in Tsarist Russia?
Similarly, perhaps the reason why Bolshevism did not develop
opportunist tendencies was because it did not work in an
environment which encouraged them. After all, unlike the
German Social Democrats, the Bolsheviks were illegal for
long periods of time and worked in an absolutist monarchy.
The influences that corrupted the German SPD were not at
work in the Tsarist regime. Thus, Bolshevism, perhaps at best,
was applicable to Tsarist conditions and anarchism to Western
ones.
However, as noted and contrary to Lenin, Russian anarchism was
far from "negligible" during 1917-18 and was growing which was
why the Bolsheviks suppressed them before the start of the
civil war. As Emma Goldman noted, a claim such as Lenin's "does
not tally with the incessant persecution of Anarchists which
began in [April] 1918, when Leon Trotsky liquidated the Anarchist
headquarters in Moscow with machine guns. At that time the
process of elimination of the Anarchists began." [Trotsky
Protests Too Much] This fact of anarchist influence during
the revolution does not contradict our earlier analysis. This
is because the Russian anarchists, rather than appealing
to the petit-bourgeois, were influencing exactly the same
workers, sailors and soldiers the Bolsheviks were. Indeed,
the Bolsheviks often had to radicalise their activities
and rhetoric to counter anarchist influence. As Alexander
Rabinowitch (in his study of the July uprising of 1917)
notes:
It could, in fact, be argued that the Bolsheviks gained the
support of so many working class people (wage slaves) during
the summer of 1917 because they sounded and acted like
anarchists
and not like Marxists. At the time many considered the Bolsheviks
as anarchists and one fellow Marxist (an ex-Bolshevik turned
Menshevik) thought Lenin had "made himself a candidate for
one European throne that has been vacant for thirty years --
the throne of Bakunin!" [quoted by Alexander Rabinowitch,
Op. Cit., p. 40] As Alexander Berkman argues, the
"Anarchist
mottoes proclaimed by the Bolsheviks did not fail to bring
results. The masses relied to their flag." [What is Communist
Anarchism, p. 101]
Moreover, this stealing of anarchist slogans and tactics
was forced upon the Bolsheviks by the working class.
On Lenin's own admission, the masses of peasants and workers
were "a hundred times further to the left" than the Bolsheviks.
Trotsky himself notes that the Bolsheviks "lagged behind
the revolutionary dynamic . . . The masses at the turning
point were a hundred times to the left of the extreme
left party." [History of the Russian Revolution, Vol. 1,
p. 403f] Indeed, one leading Bolshevik stated in June,
1917 (in response to a rise in anarchist influence),
"[b]y fencing ourselves off from the Anarchists, we may
fence ourselves off from the masses." [quoted by Alexander
Rabinowitch, Op. Cit., p. 102] That, in itself, indicates
the weakness of Lenin's class analysis of anarchism.
Rather than seeing the Russian experience refute the
claim that anarchism is a working class theory, it
reinforces it -- the Bolsheviks would not have succeeded
if they had used traditional Marxist slogans and tactics.
Instead, much to the dismay of their more orthodox comrades,
the Bolsheviks embraced traditional anarchist ideas and
tactics and thereby gained increased influence in the working
class. After the Bolshevik seizure of power in the name of
the soviets, anarchist influence increased (see
section A.5.4)
as more working people recognised that what the Bolsheviks
meant by their slogans was different than what working people
thought they meant!
Thus the experience of the Russian Revolution re-enforces
the fact that Marxist "class analysis" of anarchism fails
to convince. Far from proving that libertarian socialism is
non-proletariat, that Revolution proved that it was (just as
confirmed the prophetic correctness of the views of the founders
of anarchism and, in particular, their critique of Marxism).
The usual Marxist "class analysis" of anarchism is somewhat
confused. On the one hand, it claims that anarchism is
backward looking and the politics of the petit-bourgeois
being destroyed by the rise and development of capitalism. On
the other hand Marxists point to events and organisations
created in working class struggle which were predicted and/or
influenced by anarchist ideas and ideals, not Marxist ones.
That indicates better than any other argument that Marxists
are wrong about anarchism and their "class analysis" nothing
more than distortions and bigotry.
Based on the evidence and the contradictions it provokes in
Marxist ideology, we have to argue that McNally is simply
wrong. Rather than being an ideology of the petit-bourgeois
anarchism is, in fact, a political theory of the working
class (both artisans and proletariat). Rather than a backward
looking theory, anarchism is a theory of the present and
future -- it has a concrete and radical critique of current
society and a vision of the future and a theory how to get
there which appeals to working people in struggle. Such is
obviously the case when reading anarchist theory.
McNally claims that Marxism is "socialism from below." In his text
he indicates support for the Paris Commune and the soviets of the
Russian Revolution. He states that the "democratic and socialist
restructuring of society remains . . . the most pressing task
confronting humanity. And such a reordering of society can only
take place on the basis of the principles of socialism from below.
Now more than ever, the liberation of humanity depends upon the
self-emancipation of the world working class. . . The challenge
is to restore to socialism its democratic essence, its passionate
concern with human freedom."
So, if this is the case, why the hostility between anarchists
and Marxists? Surely it is a question of semantics? No, for
while Marxists pay lip-service to such developments of working
class self-activity and self-organisation as workers' councils
(soviets), factory committees, workers' control, revocable and
mandated delegates they do so in order to ensure the election
of their party into positions of power (i.e. the government).
Rather than see such developments as working people's direct
management of their own destinies (as anarchists do) and as
a means of creating a self-managed (i.e. free) society, Marxists
see them as a means for their party to take over state power.
Nor do they see them as a framework by which working class
people can take back control of their own lives. Rather, they
see them, at best, as typical bourgeois forms -- namely the
means by which working people can delegate their power to a
new group of leaders, i.e. as a means to elect a socialist
government into power.
This attitude can be seen from Lenin's perspectives on the
Russian soviets. Rather than seeing them as a means of working
class self-government, he saw them purely as a means of gaining
influence for his party. In his own words:
Such a perspective indicates well the difference between
anarchism and Leninism. Anarchists do not seek power for
their own organisations. Rather they see self-managed
organisation created by working class people in struggle
as a means of eliminating hierarchy within society, of
directly involving the mass of people in the decisions
that affect them. In other words, as a means of creating
the organisations through which people can change both
themselves and the world by their own direct action and
the managing of their own struggles, lives, communities
and workplaces. For Leninists, view working class
self-organisation as a means of gaining power for their
own party (which they identify with the power of the
working class). Mass organisations, which could be schools
for self-management and freedom, are instead subjected
to an elitist leadership of intellectual ideologues.
The party soon substitutes itself for the mass movement,
and the party leadership substitutes itself the party.
Despite its radical language, Leninism is totally opposed to
the nature of revolt, rebellion and revolution. It seeks to
undermine what makes these organisations and activities
revolutionary (their tendencies towards self-management,
decentralisation, solidarity, direct action, free activity
and co-operation) by using them to build their party and,
ultimately, a centralised, hierarchical state structure on
the corpse of these once revolutionary forms of working class
self-organisation and self-activity.
Lenin's view of the soviets was instrumental: he regarded them merely
as a means for educating the working class (i.e. of getting them to
support the Bolshevik Party) and enlisting them in the service of his
party. Indeed, he constantly confused soviet power with party power,
seeing the former as the means to the latter and the latter as the
key to creating socialism. What is missing from his vision is the
idea of socialism as being based on working class self-activity,
self-management and self-government ("Lenin believed that the
transition to socialism was guaranteed ultimately, not by the
self-activity of workers, but by the 'proletarian' character
of state power." [A. S. Smith, Red Petrograd, pp. 261-2] And
the 'proletarian' character of the state was determined by
the party in government). And this gap in his politics, this
confusion of party with class, which helped undermine the
revolution and create the dictatorship of the bureaucracy. Little
wonder that by the end of 1918, the Bolsheviks ruled the newly
established soviet state entirely alone and had turned the soviets
into docile instruments of their party apparatus rather than forms
of working class self-government.
For Lenin and other Bolsheviks the party of the proletariat,
that is, their party, must strive to monopolise political
power, if only to safeguard the proletarian character of the
revolution. This follows naturally from Lenin's vanguardist
politics (see section 11).
As the working class people cannot
achieve anything bar a trade union consciousness by their own
efforts, it would be insane for the Party to let them govern
directly. In the words of Lenin:
"Does every worker know how to run the state? . . . this
is not true . . . If we say that it is not the Party but
the trade unions that put up the candidates and administrate,
it may sound very democratic . . . It will be fatal for
the dictatorship of the proletariat." [Op. Cit. p. 322]
"To govern you need an army of steeled revolutionary
Communists. We have it, and it is called the Party.
All this syndicalist nonsense about mandatory nominations
of producers must go into the wastepaper basket. To
proceed on those lines would mean thrusting the Party
aside and making the dictatorship of the proletariat
. . . impossible." [Op. Cit., p. 323]
In other words, giving the proletariat the power to elect
their own managers means to destroy the "dictatorship" of
the proletariat! Lenin clearly places the power of the
party above the ability of working people to elect their
own representatives and managers. And McNally claims that
his tradition aims at "workers' power" and a "direct and
active democracy"!
Lenin's belief that working class people could not liberate
themselves (see section 11)
explains his continual emphasis on
representative democracy and centralism -- simply put, the
party must have power over the working class as that class
could not be trusted to make the right decisions (i.e. know what
its "real" interests were). At best they would be allowed to vote
for the government, but even this right could be removed if they
voted for the wrong people (see
section 8). For Leninists,
revolutionary consciousness is not generated by working class
self-activity in the class struggle, but is embodied in the party
("Since there can there can be no talk of an independent ideology
being developed by the masses of the workers in the process of their
movement the only choice is: either bourgeois or socialist ideology"
[Lenin, The Essential Works of Lenin, 82]). The important issues
facing the working class are to be determined not by the workers
ourselves, but by the leadership of the party, who are the (self
appointed) "vanguard of the proletariat". The nature of the
relationship between the party and the working class is clear,
however, we remain incapable of achieving revolutionary
consciousness and have to be led by the vanguard.
Russia, Lenin once said, "was accustomed to being ruled by 150 000
land owners. Why can 240 000 Bolsheviks not take over the task?"
[Collected Works, Vol 21, p. 336] The idea of socialism as working
class self-management and self-government was lost on him -- and
the possibility real socialism was soon lost to the Russian
working class when the Tsar was replaced by the autocratic the
rule of the Bolshevik Party. "Workers' power" cannot be
identified or equated with the power of the Party -- as it
repeatedly was by the Bolsheviks (and Social Democrats before
them).
Thus Malatesta's comments:
"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." [Life
and Ideas, p. 142]
Anarchists seek to influence people by the power of our ideas
within popular organisations. We see such organisations as the
means by which working people can take control of their own lives
and start to create a free, libertarian socialist society. A
self-managed society can only be created by self-management,
in short, and any tendencies to undermine popular self-management
in favour of hierarchical power of a party will subvert a
revolution and create an end drastically at odds with the
ideals of those who take part in it.
Similarly, anarchists reject the Leninist idea of highly
centralised "vanguard" parties. As the anarchists of
Trotwatch explain, such a party leaves much to be desired:
Such an organisation can never create a socialist society.
In contrast, anarchists argue that socialist organisations
should reflect as much as possible the future society we
are aiming to create. To build organisations which are
statist/capitalistic in structure cannot do other than
reproduce the very problems of capitalism/statism into
them and so undermine their liberatory potential. As
Murray Bookchin puts it:
"The party becomes less efficient from a revolutionary
point of view the more it seeks efficiency by means of
hierarchy, cadres and centralisation. Although everyone
marches in step, the orders are usually wrong, especially
when events begin to move rapidly and take unexpected
turns -- as they do in all revolutions. The party is
efficient in only one respect -- in moulding society
in its own hierarchical imagine if the revolution is
successful. It recreates bureaucracy, centralisation
and the state. It fosters the bureaucracy, centralisation
and the state. It fosters the very social conditions
which justify this kind of society. Hence, instead
of 'withering away,' the state controlled by the
'glorious party' preserves the very conditions which
'necessitate' the existence of a state -- and a party
to 'guard' it." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, pp. 194-198]
As we argue in section J.3,
anarchists do not reject the
need for political organisations (anarchist groups,
federations and so on) to work in mass movements and in
revolutionary situations. However, we do reject the Leninist
idea of a vanguard party as being totally inappropriate
for the needs of a social revolution -- a revolution that
aims to create a free society.
In addition to this difference in the political nature
of a socialist society, the role of organisations created
in, by and for the class struggle and the nature of socialist
organisation, anarchists and Marxists disagree with the
economic nature of the future society.
McNally claims that in Russia "[c]ontrol of the factories
was taken over by the workers" but this is a total distortion
of what actually happened. Throughout 1917, it was the workers
themselves, not the Bolshevik Party, which raised the issue
of workers' self-management and control. As S.A. Smith puts it,
the "factory committees launched the slogan of workers' control
of production quite independently of the Bolshevik party. It
was not until May that the party began to take it up." [Red
Petrograd, p. 154] Given that the defining aspect of capitalism
is wage labour, the Russian workers' raised a clearly socialist
demand that entailed its abolition. It was the Bolshevik party,
we must note, who failed to raise above a "trade union conscious"
in this and so many other cases.
In reality, the Bolsheviks themselves hindered the movement of
workers trying to control, and then manage, the factories they
worked in. As Maurice Brinton correctly argued, "it is ridiculous
to claim -- as so many do today -- that in 1917 the Bolsheviks
really stood for the full, total and direct control by working
people of the factories, mines, building sites or other enterprises
in which they worked, i.e. that they stood for workers'
self-management." [The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control,
p. 27] Rather, Lenin identified "workers' control" as something
totally different:
By "regulation" Lenin meant the "power" to oversee the books,
to check the implementation of decisions made by others, rather
than fundamental decision making. As he argued, "the economists,
engineers, agricultural experts and so on . . . [will] work
out plans under the control of the workers' organisations
. . . We are in favour of centralisation." [Op. Cit.,
pp. 78-9] Thus others would determine the plans, not the
workers themselves. As Brinton states, "[n]owhere in Lenin's
writings is workers' control ever equated with fundamental
decision-taking (i.e. with the initiation of decisions)
relating to production . . . He envisioned a period during
which, in a workers state, the bourgeois would still retain
the formal ownership and effective management of most of
the productive apparatus . . . capitalists would be
coerced into co-operation. 'Workers' control' was seen
as the instrument of this coercion." [Op. Cit., pp. 12-13]
In Lenin's own words, "[t]here is no other way . . .
than . . . organisation of really democratic control,
i.e. control 'from below,' of the workers and poorest
peasants over the capitalists." [The Threatening
Catastrophe and how to avoid it, p. 33]
Thus the capitalists would remain and wage slavery would
continue but workers could "control" those who had the real
power and gave the orders (the capitalists were later
replaced by state bureaucrats though the lack of effective
control remained). In other words, no vision of workers'
self-management in production (and so real socialism) and
the reduction of "socialism" to a warmed up variation of
state capitalism with (in theory, but not in practice) a
dash of liberal democracy in the form of "control" of
those with the real power by those under them in the
hierarchy.
S.A. Smith correctly argues that Lenin's "proposals . . .
[were] thoroughly statist and centralist in character"
and that he used "the term ['workers' control'] in a
very different sense from that of the factory committees."
[Op. Cit., p. 154] That is, he used the same slogans as
many workers' but meant something radically different
by it. Leninists follow this tradition today, as can be
seen from McNally's use of the words "[c]ontrol of the
factories was taken over by the workers" to refer to
situation drastically different from the workers'
self-management it implies to most readers.
Given Lenin's lack of concern about the revolutionising
of the relations of production (a lack not shared by
the Russian workers, we must note) it is hardly surprising
that Lenin considered the first task of the Bolshevik revolution
was to build state capitalism. "State capitalism," he wrote,
"is a complete material preparation for socialism, the
threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history
between which and the rung called socialism there are no
gaps." [Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 259] Hence his
support for centralisation and his full support for
"one-man management" -- working class power in production
is never mentioned as a necessary condition for socialism.
Little wonder Soviet Russia never progressed beyond
state capitalism -- it could not as the fundamental
aspect of capitalism, wage labour, was never replaced
by workers' self-management of production.
Lenin took the viewpoint that socialism "is nothing but
the next step forward from state capitalist monopoly. In
other words, Socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly
made to benefit the whole people; by this token it ceases
to be capitalist monopoly." [The Threatening Catastrophe and
how to avoid it, p. 37] He had no real notion of workers'
self-management of production nor of the impossibilities of
combining the centralised state capitalist system with its
big banks, monopolies, big business with genuine rank and file
control, never mind self-management. As Alexander Berkman
correctly argued:
However, this is what Lenin aimed at. The Leninist
"vision" of the future socialist economy is one of a
highly centralised organisation, modelled on capitalism,
in which, at best, workers can supervise the decisions
made by others and "control" those in power. It is a
vision of a more democratic corporate structure, with
the workers replacing the shareholders. In practice,
it would be a new bureaucracy exploiting and oppressing
those who do the actual work -- as in private capitalism --
simply because capitalist economic structures are designed
to empower the few over the many. Like the capitalist
state, they cannot be used by the working class to
achieve their liberation (they are not created for
the mass participation that real socialism requires,
quite the reverse in fact!).
In contrast, anarchists view the socialist economy as
being based on workers' self-management of production
and the workplace turned into an association of equals.
Above the individual workplace, federations of factory
committees would co-ordinate activities and ensure
wide scale co-operation is achieved. Thus anarchists
see a new form of economic structure developing,
one based on workers' organisations created in the
process of struggle against capitalism.
In other words, rather than embrace bourgeois notions
of "democracy" (i.e. the election of leaders into
positions of power) like Marxists do, anarchists dissolve
hierarchical power by promoting workers' self-management
and association. While Marxism ends up as state capitalism
pure and simple (as can be seen by the experience of
Russia under Lenin and then Stalin) anarchism destroys
the fundamental social relation of capitalism -- wage
labour -- via association and workers' self-management
of production.
Thus while both Leninists and anarchists claim to support
factory committees and "workers' control" we have decidedly
different notions of what we mean by this. The Leninists
see them as a means of workers' to supervise those who have
the real power in the economy (and so perpetuate wage
slavery with the state replacing the boss). Anarchists,
in contrast, see them as a means of expressing workers
self-organisation, self-management and self-government
-- as a means of abolishing wage slavery and so capitalism
by eliminating hierarchical authority, in other words.
The difference could not be more striking. Indeed, it
would be correct to state that the Leninist tradition
is not, in fact, socialist as it identifies socialism
as the natural development of capitalism and not as
a new form of economy which will develop away from
capitalism by means of associated labour and workers'
self-management of production.
In short, anarchists reject both the means and the ends
Leninists aim for and so our disagreements with that
tradition is far more than semantics.
This does not mean that all members of Leninist parties
do not support workers' self-management in society and
production, favour workers' democracy, actually do believe
in working class self-emancipation and so on. Many
do, unaware that the tradition they have joined does not
actually share those values. It could, therefore, be
argued that such values can be "added" to the core
Leninist ideas. However, such a viewpoint is optimistic
in the extreme. Leninist positions on workers'
self-management, etc., do not "just happen" nor are
they the product of ignorance. Rather they are the
natural result of those "core" ideas. To add other
values to Leninism would be like adding extensions to
a house built on sand -- the foundations are unsuitable
and any additions would soon fall down. This was what
happened during the Russian Revolution -- movements
from below which had a different vision of socialism
came to grief on the rocks of Bolshevik power.
The issue is clear -- either you aim for a socialist society
and use socialist methods to get there or you do not. Those
who do seek a real socialism (as opposed to warmed up state
capitalism) would be advised to consider anarchism which is
truly "socialism from below" (see
next section).
McNally argues that Marxism can be considered as "socialism from
below." Indeed, that is the name of his pamphlet. However, his
use of the term is somewhat ironic for two reasons.
Firstly, this is because the expression "from below" was
constantly on the lips of Bakunin and Proudhon. For example,
in 1848, Proudhon was talking about being a "revolutionary
from below" and that every "serious and lasting Revolution"
was "made from below, by the people." A "Revolution from
above" was "pure governmentalism," "the negation of
collective activity, of popular spontaneity" and is "the
oppression of the wills of those below." [quoted by George
Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 143] Similarly,
Bakunin saw an anarchist revolution as coming "from below."
As he put it, "liberty can be created only by liberty, by
an insurrection of all the people and the voluntary
organisation of the workers from below upward." [Statism
and Anarchy, p. 179] Elsewhere he writes that "future social
organisation must be made solely from the bottom upwards, 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."
[Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 206]
No such idea is present in Marx. Rather, he saw a revolution as
consisting of the election of a socialist party into government.
Therefore, the idea of "socialism from below" is a distinctly
anarchist notion, one found in the works of Proudhon and
Bakunin, not Marx. It is ironic, given his distorted account
of Proudhon and Bakunin that McNally uses their words to
describe Marxism!
Secondly, and far more serious for McNally, Lenin dismissed
the idea of "from below" as not Marxist. As he wrote in 1905
(and using Engels as an authority to back him up) "the
principle, 'only from below' is an anarchist principle."
[Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism,
p. 192] For Lenin, Marxists must be in favour of "From
above as well as from below" and "renunciation of pressure
also from above is anarchism" [Op. Cit., p. 196, p. 189]
McNally does not mention "from above" in his pamphlet and
so gives his account of Marxism a distinctly anarchist feel
(while denouncing it in a most deceitful way). Why is this?
Because, according to Lenin, "[p]ressure from below is
pressure by the citizens on the revolutionary government.
Pressure from above is pressure by the revolutionary
government on the citizens." [Op. Cit., pp. 189-90]
In other words, Marxism is based on idea that the government
pressuring the citizens is acceptable. Given that Marx
and Engels had argued in The Holy Family that the
"question is not what this or that proletarian, or even
the whole of the proletariat at the moment considers
as its aim. The question is what the proletariat is,
and what, consequent on that being, it will be
compelled to do" the idea of "from above" takes on
frightening overtones. [quoted by Murray Bookchin, The
Spanish Anarchists, p. 280] As Murray Bookchin argues:
A given ideological premise will led to certain
conclusions in practice -- conclusions Lenin and
Trotsky were not shy in explicitly stating.
Little wonder McNally fails to mention Lenin's support
for revolutionary action "from above." As we proved above
(in section 8),
in practice Leninism substitutes the
dictatorship of the party for that of the working class
as a whole. This is unsurprising, given its confusion
of working class power and party power. For example,
Lenin once wrote "the power of the Bolsheviks -- that
is, the power of the proletariat" while, obviously,
these two things are different. [Will the Bolsheviks
Maintain Power?, p. 102] Trotsky makes the same
identification of party dictatorship with popular
self-government:
In this confusion, we must note, they follow Engels who
argued that "each political party sets out to establish
its rule in the state, so the German Social-Democratic
Workers' Party is striving to establish its rule, the
rule of the working class." [Marx, Engels and Lenin,
Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism, p. 94]
Such confusion is deadly to a true "revolution from below" and
justifies the use of repression against the working class --
they do not understand their own "fundamental interests,"
only the party does. Anarchists recognise that parties and
classes are different and only self-management in popular
organisations from below upwards can ensure that a social
revolution remains in the hands of all and not a source of
power for the few. Thus "All Power to the Soviets," for
anarchists, means exactly that -- not a euphemism for
"All Power to the Party." As Voline made clear:
Marxist confusion of the difference between working
class power and party power, combined with the nature
of centralised power and an ideology which claims to
"comprehend" the "real" interests of the people cannot
help but lead to the rise of a ruling bureaucracy,
pursuing "from above" their own power and privileges.
"All political power inevitably creates a privileged
situation for the men who exercise it," argued Voline.
"Thus is violates, from the beginning, the equalitarian
principle and strikes at the heart of the Social
Revolution . . . [and] becomes the source of other
privileges . . . power is compelled to create a
bureaucratic and coercive apparatus indispensable to
all authority . . . Thus it forms a new privileged
caste, at first politically and later economically."
[Op. Cit., p. 249]
Thus the concept of revolution "from above" is one that
inevitably leads to a new form of class rule -- rule by
bureaucracy. This is not because the Bolsheviks were
"bad people" -- rather it is to do with the nature of
centralised power (which by its very nature can only be
exercised by the few). As the anarchist Sergven argued
in 1918:
Thus McNally's use of the term "from below" is dishonest
on two levels. Firstly, it is of anarchist origin and,
secondly, it was repudiated by Lenin himself (who urged
revolution "from below" and "from above", thus laying the
groundwork for a new class system based around the Party).
It goes without saying that either McNally is ignorant of
his subject (and if so, why write a pamphlet on it) or he
knew these facts and decided to suppress them.
Either way it shows the bankruptcy of Marxism -- it
uses libertarian rhetoric for non-libertarian ends
while distorting the real source of those ideas. That
Lenin dismissed this rhetoric and the ideas behind them
as "anarchist" says it all. McNally's (and the SWP/ISO's)
use of this rhetoric and imagery is therefore deeply
dishonest.
1. Introduction
2. Is anarchism the politics of the "small property owner"?
"While Marx was correct in predicting the eventual predominance
of the industrial proletariat vis-a-vis skilled workers, such
predominance was neither obvious nor a foregone conclusion in
France during the nineteenth century. The absolute number of
small industries even increased during most of the century. . .
"If you possess social science, you know that the problem of
association consists in organising . . . the producers, and
by this organisation subjecting capital and subordinating
power. Such is the war that you have to sustain: a war of
labour against capital; a war of liberty against authority;
a war of the producer against the non-producer; a war of
equality against privilege . . . to conduct the war to a
successful conclusion, . . . 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, pp. 397-8]
"Thus power [i.e. the state] . . . finds itself inevitably
enchained to capital and directed against the proletariat. . .
The problem before the labouring classes, then, consists,
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. Every proposition of reform which
does not satisfy this condition is simply one scourge
more . . . which threatens the proletariat." [Op. Cit.,
p. 399]
3. Does anarchism "glorify values from the past"?
"Karl Marx and his successors thought they could make no
worse accusation against the greatest of all socialists,
Proudhon, than to call him a petit-bourgeois and petit-peasant
socialist, which was neither incorrect nor insulting, since
Proudhon showed splendidly to the people of his nation and
his time, predominately small farmers and craftsmen, how
they could achieve socialism immediately without waiting
for the tidy process of big capitalism." [Op. Cit., p. 61]
"Not only does Proudhon write in the interest of the
proletarians he is himself a proletarian, an ouvrier.
His work is a scientific manifesto of the French
proletariat." [quoted by Rudolf Rocker, Marx and
Anarchism]
"Proudhon and Bakunin were 'collectivists,' which is to
say they declared themselves without equivocation in favour
of the common exploitation, not by the State but by
associated workers of the large-scale means of production
and of the public services. Proudhon has been quite
wrongly presented as an exclusive enthusiast of private
property. . . At the Bale congress [of the First International]
in 1869, Bakunin . . . all[ied] himself with the statist
Marxists . . . to ensure the triumph of the principle of
collective property." ["From Proudhon to Bakunin", The
Radical Papers, Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos (ed.), p.32]
4. Why are McNally's comments on Proudhon a distortion of his ideas?
"On this issue, it is necessary to emphasise that, contrary to the
general image given on the secondary literature, Proudhon was not
hostile to large industry. Clearly, he objected to many aspects of
what these large enterprises had introduced into society. For
example, Proudhon strenuously opposed the degrading character of
. . . work which required an individual to repeat one minor
function continuously. But he was not opposed in principle to
large-scale production. What he desired was to humanise such
production, to socialise it so that the worker would not be the
mere appendage to a machine. Such a humanisation of large
industries would result, according to Proudhon, from the
introduction of strong workers' associations. These associations
would enable the workers to determine jointly by election how
the enterprise was to be directed and operated on a day-to-day
basis." [Op. Cit., p. 156]
"Many of these masters were not anarchists throughout their lives
and their complete works include passages which have nothing to do
with anarchism.
"In place of laws, we will put contracts [i.e. free agreement]. --
No more laws voted by a majority, nor even unanimously; each
citizen, each town, each industrial union, makes its own laws."
[The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 245-6]
5. Why are McNally's comments on Bakunin a distortion of his ideas?
"The International Brotherhood he founded in Naples
in 1865-66 was as conspiratorial and dictatorial as
he could make it, for Bakunin's libertarianism
stopped short of the notion of permitting anyone to
contradict him. The Brotherhood was conceived on the
Masonic model, with elaborate rituals, a hierarchy,
and a self-appointed directory consisting of Bakunin
and a few associates."
6. Are the "quirks of personality" of Proudhon and Bakunin listed
by McNally actually rooted "in the very nature of anarchist
doctrine"?
7. Are anarchists against democracy?
"Originating in the revolt of small property owners against
the centralising and collectivising trends in capitalist
development (the tendency to concentrate production in fewer
and fewer large workplaces), anarchism has always been rooted
in a hostility to democratic and collectivist practices. The
early anarchists feared the organised power of the modern
working class."
"The essence of liberal social contract theory is that individuals
ought to promise to, or enter an agreement to, obey representatives,
to whom they have alienated their right to make political decisions
. . . Promising . . . is an expression of individual freedom and
equality, yet commits individuals for the future. Promising also
implies that individuals are capable of independent judgement and
rational deliberation, and of evaluating and changing their own
actions and relationships; promises may sometimes justifiably be
broken. However, to promise to obey is to deny or limit, to a
greater or lesser degree, individuals' freedom and equality and
their ability to exercise these capacities. To promise to obey
is to state that, in certain areas, the person making the promise
is no longer free to exercise her capacities and decide upon her
own actions, and is no longer equal, but subordinate." [The
Problem of Political Obligation, p. 19]
"Marxism['s] . . . perspectives are orientated not towards
concrete, existential freedom, but towards an abstract
freedom -- freedom for 'Society', for the 'Proletariat',
for categories rather than for people." [Post Scarcity
Anarchism, pp. 225-6]
"What all socialists understand by anarchy is this: once the
aim of the proletarian movement, the abolition of classes, has
been attained, the power of the State . . . disappears, and the
functions of government are transformed into simple administrative
functions." [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and
Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 76]
8. Are Leninists in favour of democracy?
"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."
9. Why is McNally wrong on the relation of
syndicalism to anarchism?
"Modern Anarcho-syndicalism is a direct continuation of those
social aspirations which took shape in the bosom of the First
International and which were best understood and most strongly
held by the libertarian wing of the great workers' alliance."
[Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 49]
"When strikes spread by contagion, it is because they are
close to becoming a general strike, and a general strike
in view of the ideas of emancipation which hold sway over
the proletariat, can only lead to a cataclysm which would
make society start a new life after shedding its old skin."
[Op. Cit., p. 217]
10. Do syndicalists reject working class political
action?
"It has often been charged against Anarcho-Syndicalism that it has no
interest in the political structure of the different countries, and
consequently no interest in the political struggles of the time, and
confines its activities to the fight for purely economic demands. This
idea is altogether erroneous and springs either from outright ignorance
or wilful distortion of the facts. It is not the political struggle as
such which distinguishes the Anarcho-Syndicalists from the modern
labour parties, both in principle and in tactics, but the form of
this struggle and the aims which it has in view. . .
"Nor did syndicalists neglect politics and the state. Revolutionary
industrial movements were on the contrary highly 'political' in
that they sought to understand, challenge and destroy the structure
of capitalist power in society. They quite clearly perceived the
oppressive role of the state whose periodic intervention in
industrial unrest could hardly have been missed." [Bob Holton,
British Syndicalism: 1900-1914, pp. 21-2]
11. Why is McNally's claim that Leninism supports the principle
of working class self-emancipation is wrong?
"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." [Op. Cit., p. 398]
"Proudhon insisted that the revolution could only come from
below, through the action of the workers themselves."
[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican
Socialism, p. 157]
12. Why is Marxist "class analysis" of anarchism contradictory?
"At the rank-and-file level, particularly within the
[Petrograd] garrison and at the Kronstadt naval base,
there was in fact very little to distinguish Bolshevik from
Anarchist. . . The Anarchist-Communists and the Bolsheviks
competed for the support of the same uneducated, depressed.
and dissatisfied elements of the population, and the fact
is that in the summer of 1917, the Anarchist-Communists,
with the support they enjoyed in a few important factories
and regiments, possessed an undeniable capacity to influence
the course of events. Indeed, the Anarchist appeal was great
enough in some factories and military units to influence the
actions of the Bolsheviks themselves." [Prelude to
Revolution,
p. 64]
This is hardly what would be expected if anarchism was
"petit-bourgeois" as Marxists assert.
13. If Marxism is "socialism from below," why do anarchists reject
it?
"the Party . . . has never renounced its intention of
utilising certain non-party organisations, such as
the Soviets of Workers' Deputies . . . to extend
Social-Democratic influence among the working class
and to strengthen the Social-Democratic labour movement
. . . the incipient revival creates the opportunity to
organise or utilise non-party working-class institutions,
such as Soviets . . . for the purpose of developing the
Social-Democratic movement; at the same time the
Social-Democratic Party organisations must bear in
mind if Social-Democratic activities among the
proletarian masses are properly, effectively and
widely organised, such institutions may actually
become superfluous." [Marx, Engels and Lenin,
Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, pp. 209-10]
"Syndicalism hands over to the mass of non-Party workers
. . . the management of their industries . . . thereby
making the Party superfluous. . . Why have a Party, if
industrial management is to be appointed . . . by trade
unions nine-tenths of whose members are non-Party
workers?" [Op. Cit., pp. 319-20]
"The important, fundamental dissension [between anarchists
and Marxists] is [that] . . . [Marxist] socialists are authoritarians,
anarchists are libertarians.
"In reality, a Leninist Party simply reproduces and
institutionalises existing capitalist power relations
inside a supposedly 'revolutionary' organisation:
between leaders and led; order givers and order takers;
between specialists and the acquiescent and largely
powerless party workers. And that elitist power
relation is extended to include the relationship
between the party and class." [Carry on Recruiting!,
p. 41]
"The 'glorious party,' when there is one, almost invariably
lags behind the events . . . In the beginning . . . it
tends to have an inhibitory function, not a 'vanguard'
role. Where it exercises influence, it tends to slow down
the flow of events, not 'co-ordinate' the revolutionary
forced. This is not accidental. The party is structured
along hierarchical lines that reflect the very society
it professes to oppose . . . Its membership is schooled
in obedience . . . The party's leadership, in turn, is
schooled in habits born of command, authority, manipulation
. . . Its leaders . . . lose contact with the living
situation below. The local groups, which know their own
immediate situation better than any remote leaders, are
obliged to subordinate their insights to directives from
above. The leadership, lacking any direct knowledge of
local problems, responds sluggishly and prudently. . .
"When we speak of 'workers control,' always placing this
cry side by side with the dictatorship of the proletariat
. . . we make clear thereby what State we have in mind
. . . if we have in mind a proletarian State -- that is,
the dictatorship of the proletariat -- then the workers'
control can become a national, all-embracing, universally
realisable, most exact and most conscientious regulating
of the production and distribution of goods." [Can the
Bolsheviks Maintain State Power?, pp. 46-7]
"The role of industrial decentralisation in the revolution
is unfortunately too little appreciated. . . Most people
are still in the thraldom of the Marxian dogma that
centralisation is 'more efficient and economical.' They
close their eyes to the fact that the alleged 'economy'
is achieved at the cost of the workers' limb and life,
that the 'efficiency' degrades him to a mere industrial
cog, deadens his soul, kills his body. Furthermore, in
a system of centralisation the administration of industry
becomes constantly merged in fewer hands, producing a
powerful bureaucracy of industrial overlords. It would
indeed be the sheerest irony if the revolution were to
aim at such a result. It would mean the creation of
a new master class." [The ABC of Anarchism, pp. 80-1]
14. Why is McNally's use of the term "socialism from below"
dishonest?
"These lines and others like them in Marx's writings were
to provide the rationale for asserting the authority of
Marxist parties and their armed detachments over and
even against the proletariat. Claiming a deeper and
more informed comprehension of the situation then
'even the whole of the proletariat at the given moment,'
Marxist parties went on to dissolve such revolutionary
forms of proletarian organisation as factory committees
and ultimately to totally regiment the proletariat
according to lines established by the party leadership."
[Op. Cit., p. 289]
"We have more than once been accused of having substituted for
the dictatorship of the Soviets the dictatorship of our party.
Yet it can be said with complete justice that the dictatorship
of the Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship
of the party. It is thanks to the clarity of its theoretical
vision and its strong revolutionary organisation that the party
has afforded to the Soviets the possibility of becoming transformed
from shapeless parliaments of labour into the apparatus of the
supremacy of labour. In this 'substitution' of the power of the
party for the power of the working class there is nothing
accidental, and in reality there is no substitution at all.
The Communists express the fundamental interests of the working
class. It is quite natural that, in the period in which history
brings up those interests . . . the Communists have become the
recognised representatives of the working class as a whole."
[Terrorism and Communism, p. 109]
"[F]or, the anarchists declared, if 'power' really
should belong to the soviets, it could not belong to
the Bolshevik Party, and if it should belong to that
Party, as the Bolsheviks envisaged, it could not
belong to the soviets." [The Unknown Revolution,
p. 213]
"The proletariat is being gradually enserfed by the state.
The people are being transformed into servants over whom
there has arisen a new class of administrators -- a new
class born mainly form the womb of the so-called intelligentsia
. . . We do not mean to say . . . that the Bolshevik party
set out to create a new class system. But we do say that
even the best intentions and aspirations must inevitably
be smashed against the evils inherent in any system of
centralised power. The separation of management from labour,
the division between administrators and workers flows
logically from centralisation. It cannot be otherwise."
[The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, pp. 123-4]