H.2 What parts of anarchism do Marxists particularly misrepresent?

Many people involved in politics will soon discover that Marxist groups (particularly Leninist and Trotskyist ones) organise "debates" about anarchism. These meetings are usually entitled "Marxism and Anarchism" and are usually organised after anarchists have been active in the area or have made the headlines somewhere.

These meetings, contrary to common sense, are usually not a debate as (almost always) no anarchists are invited to argue the anarchist viewpoint and, therefore, they present a one-sided account of "Marxism and Anarchism" in a manner which benefits the organisers. Usually, the format is a speaker distorting anarchist ideas and history for a long period of time (both absolutely in terms of the length of the meeting and relatively in terms of the boredom inflicted on the unfortunate attendees). It will soon become obvious to those attending that any such meeting is little more than an unprincipled attack on anarchism with little or no relationship to what anarchism is actually about. Those anarchists who attend such meetings usually spend most of their allotted (usually short) speaking time refuting the nonsense that is undoubtedly presented. Rather than a real discussion between the differences between anarchism and "Marxism" (i.e. Leninism), the meeting simply becomes one where anarchists correct the distortions and misrepresentations of the speaker in order to create the basis of a real debate. If the reader does not believe this summary we would encourage them to attend such a meeting and see for themselves.

Needless to say, we cannot hope to reproduce the many distortions produced in such meetings. However, when anarchists do hit the headlines (such as in the 1990 poll tax riot in London and the in current anti-globalisation movement), various Marxist papers will produce articles on "Anarchism" as well. Like the meetings, the articles are full of so many elementary errors that it takes a lot of effort to think they are the product of ignorance rather than a conscious desire to lie (the appendix "Anarchism and Marxism" contains a few replies to such articles and other Marxist diatribes on anarchism). In addition, many of the founding fathers of Marxism (and Leninism) also decided to attack anarchism in similar ways, so this activity does have a long tradition in Marxist circles (particularly in Leninist and Trotskyist ones). Sadly, Max Nettlau's comments on Marx and Engels are applicable to many of their followers today. He argued that they "acted with that shocking lack of honesty which was characteristic of all their polemics. They worked with inadequate documentation, which, according to their custom, they supplemented with arbitrary declarations and conclusions -- accepted as truth by their followers although they were exposed as deplorable misrepresentations, errors and unscrupulous perversions of the truth." [A Short History of Anarchism, p. 132] As the reader will discover, this summary has not lost its relevance today. If they read Marxist "critiques" of anarchism they will soon discover the same repetition of "accepted" truths, the same inadequate documentation, the same arbitrary declarations and conclusions as well as an apparent total lack of familiarity with the source material they claim to be analysing.

This section of the FAQ lists and refutes many of the most common distortions Marxists make with regards to anarchism. As will become clear, many of the most common Marxist attacks on anarchism have little or no basis in fact but have simply been repeated so often by Marxists that they have entered the ideology (the idea that anarchists think the capitalist class will just disappear being, probably, the most famous one, closely followed by anarchism being in favour of "small-scale" production). We will not bother to refute the more silly Marxist assertions (such as anarchists are against organisation or are not "socialists"). Instead, we will concentrate on the more substantial and most commonly repeated ones. Of course, many of these distortions and misrepresentations coincide and flow into each other, but there are many which can be considered distinct issues and will be discussed in turn.

Moreover, Marxists make many major and minor distortions of anarchist theory in passing. For example, Engels asserted in his infamous diatribe "The Bakuninists at work" that Bakunin "[a]s early as September 1870 (in his Lettres a un francais [Letters to a Frenchman]) . . . had declared that the only way to drive the Prussians out of France by a revolutionary struggle was to do away with all forms of centralised leadership and leave each town, each village, each parish to wage war on its own." [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 141] In fact, the truth is totally different.

Bakunin does, of course, reject "centralised leadership" as it would be "necessarily very circumscribed, very short-sighted, and its limited perception cannot, therefore, penetrate the depth and encompass the whole complex range of popular life." However, it is a falsehood to state that he denies the need for co-ordination of struggles and federal organisations from the bottom up. As he puts it, the revolution must "foster the self-organisation of the masses into autonomous bodies, federated from the bottom upwards." With regards to the peasants, he thinks they will "come to an understanding, and form some kind of organisation . . . to further their mutual interests . . . the necessity to defend their homes, their families, and their own lives against unforeseen attack . . . will undoubtedly soon compel them to contract new and mutually suitable arrangements." The peasants would be "freely organised from the bottom up." ["Letters to a Frenchman on the present crisis", Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 196, p. 206 and p. 207] In this he repeated his earlier arguments concerning social revolution -- arguments that Engels was well aware of. In other words, Engels deliberately misrepresented Bakunin's political ideas.

Similarly, we find Trotsky asserting in 1937 that anarchists are "willing to replace Bakunin's patriarchal 'federation of free communes' by the more modern federation of free soviets." [Stalinism and Bolshevism] It is hard to know where to start in this incredulous rewriting of history. Firstly, Bakunin's federation of free communes was, in fact, based on workers' councils ("soviets"). As he put it, "the federative Alliance of all working men's associations . . . will constitute the Commune" and "revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme control must always belong to the people organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . . organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegation." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170 and p. 172] The similarities with workers councils are clear. Little wonder historian Paul Avrich summarised as follows:

"As early as the 1860's and 1870's, the followers of Proudhon and Bakunin in the First International were proposing the formation of workers' councils designed both as a weapon of class struggle against capitalists and as the structural basis of the future libertarian society." [The Russian Anarchists, p. 73]

As for the charge of supporting "patriarchal" communes, nothing could be further from the truth. In his discussion of the Russian peasant commune (the mir) Bakunin argued that "patriarchalism" was one of its "three dark features," indeed "the main historical evil . . . against which we are obliged to struggle with all our might." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 206 and pp. 209-10]

As can be seen Trotsky's summary of Bakunin's ideas is totally wrong. Not only did his ideas on the organisation of the free commune as a federation of workers' associations predate the soviets by decades (and so much more "modern" than Marxist conceptions), he also argued against patriarchal relationships and urged their destruction in the Russian peasant commune (and elsewhere). Indeed, if any one fits Trotsky's invention it is Marx, not Bakunin. After all, Marx came round (eventually) to Bakunin's position that the peasant commune could be the basis for Russia to jump straight to socialism (and so by-passing capitalism) but without Bakunin's critical analysis of that institution and its patriarchal and other "dark" features. Similarly, Marx never argued that the future socialist society would be based on workers' associations and their federation (i.e. workers' councils). His vision of revolution was formulated in typically bourgeois structures such as the Paris Commune's municipal council.

We could go on, but space precludes discussing every example. Suffice to say, it is not wise to take any Marxist assertion of anarchist thought or history at face value. A common technique is to quote anarchist writers out of context or before they become anarchists. For example, Marxist Paul Thomas argues that Bakunin favoured "blind destructiveness" and yet quotes more from Bakunin's pre-anarchist works (as well as Russian nihilists) than Bakunin's anarchist works to prove his claim. [Karl Marx and the Anarchists, pp. 288-90] Similarly, he claims that Bakunin "defended the federes of the Paris Commune of 1871 on the grounds that they were strong enough to dispense with theory altogether," yet his supporting quote does not, in fact say this. [Op. Cit., p. 285] What Bakunin was, in fact, arguing was simply that theory must progress from experience and that any attempt to impose a theory on society would be doomed to create a "Procrustean bed" as no government could "embrace the infinite multiplicity and diversity of the real aspirations, wishes and needs whose sum total constitutes the collective will of a people." He explicitly contrasted the Marxist system of "want[ing] to impose science upon the people" with the anarchist desire "to diffuse science and knowledge among the people, so that the various groups of human society, when convinced by propaganda, may organise and spontaneously combine into federations, in accordance with their natural tendencies and their real interests, but never according to a plan traced in advance and imposed upon the ignorant masses by a few 'superior' minds." [The Political Theory of Bakunin, p. 300] A clear misreading of Bakunin's argument but one which fits nicely into Marxist preconceptions of Bakunin and anarchism in general.

This tendency to quote out of context or from periods when anarchists were not anarchists probably explains why so many of these Marxist accounts of anarchism are completely lacking in references. Take, for example, the British SWP's Pat Stack who wrote one of the most inaccurate diatribes against anarchism the world has had the misfortunate to see (namely "Anarchy in the UK?" which was published in issue no. 246 of Socialist Review). There is not a single reference in the whole article, which is just as well, given the inaccuracies contained in it. Without references, the reader would not be able to discover for themselves the distortions and simple errors contained in it. For example, Stack asserts that Bakunin "claimed a purely 'instinctive socialism.'" However, the truth is different and this quote from Bakunin is one by him comparing himself and Marx in the 1840s!

In fact, the anarchist Bakunin argued that "instinct as a weapon is not sufficient to safeguard the proletariat against the reactionary machinations of the privileged classes," as instinct "left to itself, and inasmuch as it has not been transformed into consciously reflected, clearly determined thought, lends itself easily to falsification, distortion and deceit." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 215] Bakunin saw the process of class struggle as the means of transforming instinct into conscious thought. As he put it, the "goal, then, is to make the worker fully aware of what he [or she] wants, to unjam within him [or her] a steam of thought corresponding to his [or her] instinct." This is done by "a single path, that of emancipation through practical action," by "workers' solidarity in their struggle against the bosses," of "collective struggle of the workers against the bosses." This would be complemented by socialist organisations "propagandis[ing] its principles." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 102, p. 103 and p. 109] Clearly, Stack is totally distorting Bakunin's ideas on the subject.

This technique of quoting Bakunin when he spoke about (or when wrote in) his pre-anarchist days in the 1840s, i.e. nearly 20 years before he became an anarchist, or from Proudhon's posthumously published work on property (in which Proudhon saw small-scale property as a bulwark against state tyranny) to attack anarchism is commonplace. As such, it is always wise to check the source material and any references (assuming that they are provided). Only by doing this can it be discovered whether a quote reflects the opinions of individuals when they were anarchists or whether they are referring to periods when they were no longer, or had not yet become, anarchists.

Ultimately, though, these kinds of articles by Marxists simply show the ideological nature of their own politics and say far more about Marxism than anarchism. After all, if their politics were so strong they would not need to distort anarchist ideas! In addition, these essays are usually marked by a lot of (usually inaccurate) attacks on the ideas (or personal failings) of individual anarchists (usually Proudhon and Bakunin and sometimes Kropotkin). No modern anarchist theorist is usually mentioned, never mind discussed. Obviously, for most Marxists, anarchists must repeat parrot-like the ideas of these "great men." However, while Marxists may do this, anarchists have always rejected this approach. We deliberately call ourselves anarchists rather than Proudhonists, Bakuninists, Kropotkinists, or after any other person. As Malatesta argued in 1876 (the year of Bakunin's death) "[w]e follow ideas and not men, and rebel against this habit of embodying a principle in a man." [Life and Ideas, p. 198]

Therefore, anarchists, unlike many (most?) Marxists do not believe that some prophet wrote down the scriptures in past centuries and if only we could reach a correct understanding of these writings today we would see the way forward. Chomsky put it extremely well when he argued that:

"The whole concept of Marxist or Freudian or anything like that is very odd. These concepts belong to the history of organised religion. Any living person, no matter how gifted, will make some contributions intermingled with error and partial understanding. We try to understand and improve on their contributions and eliminate the errors. But how can you identify yourself as a Marxist, or a Freudian, or an X-ist, whoever X may be? That would be to treat the person as a God to be revered, not a human being whose contributions are to be assimilated and transcended. It's a crazy idea, a kind of idolatry." [The Chomsky Reader, pp. 29-30]

This means that anarchists recognise that any person, no matter how great or influential, are just human. They make mistakes, they fail to live up to all the ideals they express, they are shaped by the society they live in, and so on. Anarchists recognise this fact and extract the positive aspects of past anarchist thinkers, reject the rest and develop what we consider the living core of their ideas. We develop the ideas and analyses of these pioneers of the anarchist ideal, reject the rubbish and embrace the good, learn from history and constantly try to bring anarchist ideas up-to-date (after all, a lot has changed since the days of Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin and this has to be taken into account). As Max Nettlau put it with regards to Proudhon, "we have to extract from his work useful teachings that would be of great service to our modern libertarians, who nevertheless have to find their own way from theory to practice and to the critique of our present-day conditions, as Proudhon did in his time. This does not call for a slavish imitation; it implies using his work to inspire us and enable us to profit by his experience." [A Short History of Anarchism, pp. 46-7] Similarly for other anarchists -- we see them as a source of inspiration upon which to build rather than a template which to copy. This means to attack anarchism by, say, attacking Bakunin's or Proudhon's personal failings is to totally miss the point. While anarchists may be inspired by the ideas of, say, Bakunin or Proudhon it does not mean we blindly follow all of their ideas. Far from it! We critically analysis their ideas and keep what is living and reject what is useless or dead. Sadly, such common sense is lacking in many who critique anarchism.

However, the typical Marxist approach does have its benefits from a political perspective. As Albert Meltzer pointed out, "[i]t is very difficult for Marxist-Leninists to make an objective criticism of Anarchism, as such, because by its nature it undermines all the suppositions basic to Marxism. If Marxism is held out to be indeed the basic working class philosophy, and the proletariat cannot owe its emancipation to anyone but itself, it is hard to go back on it and say that the working class is not yet ready to dispense with authority placed over it. Marxism therefore normally tries to refrain from criticising anarchism as such -- unless driven to doing so, when it exposes its own authoritarian . . . and concentrates its attacks not on anarchism, but on anarchists." [Anarchism: Arguments for and Against, p. 37] Needless to say, this technique is the one usually applied by Marxists (although, we must stress that often their account of the ideas of Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin are so distorted that they fail even to do this!).

So anarchist theory has developed since Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin. At each period in history anarchism advanced in its understanding of the world, the anarchism of Bakunin was a development of that of Proudhon, these ideas were again developed by the anarcho-communists of the 1880s and by the syndicalists of the 1890's, by the Italian Malatesta, the Russian Kropotkin, the Mexican Flores Magon and many other individuals and movements. Today we stand on their shoulders, not at their feet.

As such, to concentrate on the ideas of a few "leaders" misses the point totally. Ideas change and develop and anarchism has changed as well. While it contains many of the core insights of, say, Bakunin, it has also developed them and added to them. It has, concretely, taken into account, say, the lessons of the Russian and Spanish revolutions and so on. As such, even assuming that Marxist accounts of certain aspects of the ideas of Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin were correct, they would have to be shown to be relevant to modern anarchism to be of any but historical interest. Sadly, Marxists generally fail to do this and, instead, we are subject to a (usually inaccurate) history lesson.

In order to understand, learn from and transcend previous theorists we must honestly present their ideas. Unfortunately many Marxists do not do this and so this section of the FAQ involves correcting the many mistakes, distortions, errors and lies that Marxists have subjected anarchism to. Hopefully, with this done, a real dialogue can develop between Marxists and anarchists. Indeed, this has happened between libertarian Marxists (such as council communists and Situationists) and anarchists and both tendencies have benefited from it. Perhaps this dialogue between libertarian Marxists and anarchists is to be expected, as the mainstream Marxists have often misrepresented the ideas of libertarian Marxists as well!

H.2.1 Do anarchists reject defending a revolution?

For revolutionary anarchists, it is a truism that a revolution will need to defend itself against counter-revolutionary threats. Bakunin, for example, while strenuously objecting to the idea of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (see section H.1.1 for details) also thought a revolution would need to defend itself. In his words:

"Immediately after established governments have been overthrown, communes will have to reorganise themselves along revolutionary lines . . . In order to defend the revolution, their volunteers will at the same time form a communal militia. But no commune can defend itself in isolation. So it will be necessary to radiate revolution outward, to raise all of its neighbouring communes in revolt . . . and to federate with them for common defence." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 142]

And:

"the Alliance of all labour associations . . . will constitute the Commune . . . there will be a standing federation of the barricades and a Revolutionary Communal Council . . . [made up of] delegates . . . invested with binding mandates and accountable and revocable at all times . . . all provinces, communes and associations . . . [will] delegate deputies to an agreed place of assembly (all . . . invested with binding mandated and accountable and subject to recall), in order to found the federation of insurgent associations, communes and provinces . . . and to organise a revolutionary force with the capacity of defeating the reaction . . . it is through the very act of extrapolation and organisation of the Revolution with an eye to the mutual defences of insurgent areas that the universality of the Revolution . . . will emerge triumphant." [Op. Cit., vol. 1, pp. 155-6]

Malatesta agreed, arguing for the "creation of voluntary militia, without powers to interfere as militia in the life of the community, but only to deal with any armed attacks by the forces of reaction to re-establish themselves, or to resist outside intervention." The workers must "take possession of the factories" and "federate amongst themselves" and only "the people in arms, in possession of the land, the factories and all the natural wealth" could defend a revolution [Life and Ideas, p. 166, p. 165 and p. 170] Alexander Berkman concurred: "The armed workers and peasants are the only effective defence of the revolution. By means of their unions and syndicates they must always be on guard against counter-revolutionary attack." [ABC of Anarchism, p. 82] Emma Goldman clearly and unambiguously stated that she had "always insisted that an armed attack on the Revolution must be met with armed force" and that "an armed counter-revolutionary and fascist attack can be met in no way except by an armed defence." [Vision on Fire, p. 222 and p. 217]

Clearly, anarchism has always recognised the necessity of defending a revolution and proposed ideas to ensure it (ideas applied with great success by, for example, the Makhnovists in the Ukrainian Revolution and the C.N.T militias during the Spanish). As such, any assertion that anarchism rejects the necessity of defending a revolution are simply false.

Which, of course, brings us to the second assertion, namely that any attempt to defend a revolution means that a state has been created (regardless of what it may be called). For anarchists, such an argument simply shows that Marxists do not really understand what a state is. While the Trotskyist definition of a "state" is "an apparatus designed to enable one class to rule another," the anarchist definition is somewhat different. Anarchists, of course, do not deny that the modern state is (to use Malatesta's excellent expression) "the bourgeoisie's servant and gendarme." [Anarchy, p. 20] Every state that has ever existed has defended the power of a minority class and, unsurprisingly, has developed certain features to facilitate this. The key one is centralisation of power. This ensures that the working people are excluded from the decision making process and power remains a tool of the ruling class. As such, the centralisation of power (while it may take many forms) is the key means by which a class system is maintained and, therefore, a key aspect of a state. As Kropotkin put, the "state idea . . . includes the existence of a power situated above society . . . a territorial concentration as well as the concentration of many functions of the life of societies in the hands of a few." [Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution, p. 213] This was the case with representative democracy:

"To attack the central power, to strip it of its prerogatives, to decentralise, to dissolve authority, would have been to abandon to the people the control of its affairs, to run the risk of a truly popular revolution. That is why the bourgeoisie sought to reinforce the central government even more. . ." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, p. 143]

This meant that the "representative system was organised by the bourgeoisie to ensure their domination, and it will disappear with them. For the new economic phase that is about to begin we must seek a new form of political organisation, based on a principle quite different from that of representation. The logic of events imposes it." [Op. Cit., p. 125] So while we agree with Marxists that the main function of the state is to defend class society, we also stress the structure of the state has evolved to execute that role. In the words of Rudolf Rocker:

"[S]ocial institutions . . . do not arise arbitrarily, but are called into being by special needs to serve definite purposes . . . The newly arisen possessing classes had need of a political instrument of power to maintain their economic and social privileges over the masses of their own people . . . Thus arose the appropriate social conditions for the evolution of the modern state, as the organ of political power of privileged castes and classes for the forcible subjugation and oppression of the non-possessing classes . . . Its external forms have altered in the course of its historical development, but its functions have always been the same . . . And just as the functions of the bodily organs of . . . animals cannot be arbitrarily altered, so that, for example, one cannot at will hear with his eyes and see with his ears, so also one cannot at pleasure transform an organ of social oppression into an instrument for the liberation of the oppressed. The state can only be what it is: the defender of mass-exploitation and social privileges, and creator of privileged classes." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 20]

As such, a new form of society, one based on the participation of all in the affairs of society (and a classless society can be nothing else) means the end of the state. This is because it has been designed to exclude the participation a classless society needs in order to exist. In anarchist eyes, it is an abuse of the language to call the self-managed organisations by which the former working class manage (and defend) a free society a state. If it was simply a question of consolidating a revolution and its self-defence then there would be no argument:

"But perhaps the truth is simply this: . . . [some] take the expression 'dictatorship of the proletariat' to mean simply the revolutionary action of the workers in taking possession of the land and the instruments of labour, and trying to build a society and organise a way of life in which there will be no place for a class that exploits and oppresses the producers.

"Thus constructed, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' would be the effective power of all workers trying to bring down capitalist society and would thus turn into Anarchy as soon as resistance from reactionaries would have ceased and no one can any longer seek to compel the masses by violence to obey and work for him. In which case, the discrepancy between us would be nothing more than a question of semantics. Dictatorship of the proletariat would signify the dictatorship of everyone, which is to say, it would be a dictatorship no longer, just as government by everybody is no longer a government in the authoritarian, historical and practical sense of the word.

"But the real supporters of 'dictatorship of the proletariat' do not take that line, as they are making quite plain in Russia. Of course, the proletariat has a hand in this, just as the people has a part to play in democratic regimes, that is to say, to conceal the reality of things. In reality, what we have is the dictatorship of one party, or rather, of one' party's leaders: a genuine dictatorship, with its decrees, its penal sanctions, its henchmen and above all its armed forces, which are at present [1919] also deployed in the defence of the revolution against its external enemies, but which will tomorrow be used to impose the dictator's will upon the workers, to apply a break on revolution, to consolidate the new interests in the process of emerging and protect a new privileged class against the masses." [Malatesta, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, pp. 38-9]

The question is, therefore, one of who "seizes power" -- will it be the mass of the population or will it be a party claiming to represent the mass of the population. The difference is vital and it confuses the issue to use the same word "state" to describe two such fundamentally different structures as a "bottom-up" self-managed communal federation and a "top-down" hierarchical centralised organisation (such as has been every state that has existed). This explains why anarchists reject the idea of a "democratic workers' state" as the means by which a revolution defends itself. Rather than signify working class power or management of society, it signifies the opposite -- the seizure of power of a minority (in this case, the leaders of the vanguard party).

Anarchists argue that the state is designed to exclude the mass of the population from the decision making process. This, ironically for Trotskyism, was one of the reasons why leading Bolsheviks (including Lenin and Trotsky) argued for a workers state. The centralisation of power implied by the state was essential so that the vanguard party could ignore the "the will of the majority." This particular perspective was clearly a lesson they learned from their experiences during the Russian Revolution.

As noted in section H.1.2, Lenin was arguing in 1920 that "the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts . . . that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard . . . Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the essentials of transitions from capitalism to communism . . . for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation." [Collected Works, vol. 32, p. 21]

This argument, as can be seen, was considered of general validity and, moreover, was merely stating mainstream Bolshevik ideology. It was repeated in March 1923 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party in a statement issued to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party. This statement summarised the lessons gained from the Russian revolution. It stated that "the party of the Bolsheviks proved able to stand out fearlessly against the vacillations within its own class, vacillations which, with the slightest weakness in the vanguard, could turn into an unprecedented defeat for the proletariat." Vacillations, of course, are expressed by workers' democracy. Little wonder the statement rejects it: "The dictatorship of the working class finds its expression in the dictatorship of the party." ["To the Workers of the USSR" in G. Zinoviev, History of the Bolshevik Party, p. 213, p. 214] It should be noted that this Central Committee included Trotsky who, in the same year, was stating that "[i]f there is one question which basically not only does not require revision but does not so much as admit the thought of revision, it is the question of the dictatorship of the Party." [Leon Trotsky Speaks, p. 158]

Needless to say, Workers' Power (like most Trotskyists) blame the degeneration of the Russian revolution on the Civil War and its isolation. However, as these statements make clear, the creation of a party dictatorship was not seen in these terms. Rather, it was considered a necessity to suppress democracy and replace it by party rule. Indeed, as noted in section H.1.2, Trotsky was still arguing in 1937 for the "objective necessity" for the "dictatorship of a party" due to the "heterogeneity" of the working class. [Writings 1936-37, pp. 513-4] Moreover, as we discuss in detail in the appendix on "What happened during the Russian Revolution?", the Bolshevik undermining of working class autonomy and democracy started well before the outbreak of civil war, thus confirming anarchist theory. These conclusions of leading Leninists simply justified the actions undertaken by the Bolsheviks from the start.

This is why anarchists reject the idea of a "democratic workers' state." Simply put, as far as it is a state, it cannot be democratic and in as far as it is democratic, it cannot be a state. The Leninist idea of a "workers' state" means, in fact, the seizure of power by the party. This, we must stress, naturally follows from the idea of the state. It is designed for minority rule and excludes, by its very nature, mass participation. As can be seen, this aspect of the state is one which the leading lights of Bolshevik agreed with. Little wonder, then, that in practice the Bolshevik regime suppressed of any form of democracy which hindered the power of the party (see the appendix on "What happened during the Russian Revolution?"). Maurice Brinton sums up the issue well when he argued that "'workers' power' cannot be identified or equated with the power of the Party -- as it repeatedly was by the Bolsheviks . . . What 'taking power' really implies is that the vast majority of the working class at last realises its ability to manage both production and society -- and organises to this end." [The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. xiv]

In summary, therefore, anarchists reject the idea that the defence of a revolution can be conducted by a state. As Bakunin once put it, there is the "Republic-State" and there is "the system of the Republic-Commune, the Republic-Federation, i.e. the system of Anarchism. This is the politics of the Social Revolution, which aims at the abolition of the State and establishment of the economic, entirely free organisation of the people -- organisation from bottom to top by means of federation." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 314] Indeed, creating a new state will simply destroy the most important gain of any revolution -- working class autonomy -- and its replacement by another form of minority rule (by the party). Anarchists have always argued that the defence of a revolution must not be confused with the state and so argue for the abolition of the state and the defence of a revolution (also see section H.1.3 for more discussion). Only when working class people actually run themselves society will a revolution be successful. For anarchists, this means that "effective emancipation can be achieved only by the direct, widespread, and independent action . . . of the workers themselves, grouped . . . in their own class organisations . . . on the basis of concrete action and self-government, helped but not governed, by revolutionaries working in the very midst of, and not above the mass and the professional, technical, defence and other branches." [Voline, The Unknown Revolution, p. 197] This means that anarchists argue that the capitalist state cannot be transformed or adjusted, but has to be smashed by a social revolution and replaced with organisations and structures created by working class people during their own struggles (see section H.1.4 for details).

For a further discussion of anarchist ideas on defending a revolution, please consult sections I.5.14 and J.7.6.

H.2.2 Do anarchists reject "class conflict" as "the motor of change" and "collective struggle" as the "means"?

For example, Pat Stack of the British SWP argued that anarchists "dismiss . . . the importance of the collective nature of change" and so "downplays the centrality of the working class" in the revolutionary process. This, he argues, means that for anarchism the working class "is not the key to change." He stresses that for Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin "revolutions were not about . . . collective struggle or advance." Indeed, that anarchism "despises the collectivity." Amazingly he argues that for Kropotkin, "far from seeing class conflict as the dynamic for social change as Marx did, saw co-operation being at the root of the social process." Therefore, "[i]t follows that if class conflict is not the motor of change, the working class is not the agent and collective struggle not the means. Therefore everything from riot to bomb, and all that might become between the two, was legitimate when ranged against the state, each with equal merit." ["Anarchy in the UK?", Socialist Review, no. 246] Needless to say, he makes the usual exception for anarcho-syndicalists, thereby showing his total ignorance of anarchism and syndicalism (see section H.2.8).

Indeed, these assertions are simply incredible. It is hard to believe that anyone who is a leading member of a Leninist party could write such nonsense which suggests that Stack is aware of the truth and simply decides to ignore it. All in all, it is very easy to refute these assertions. All we have to do is, unlike Stack, to quote from the works of Bakunin, Kropotkin and other anarchists. Even the briefest familiarity with the writings of revolutionary anarchism would soon convince the reader that Stack really does not know what he is talking about.

Take, for example, Bakunin. Rather than reject class conflict, collective struggle or the key role of the working class, Bakunin based his political ideas on all three. As he put it, there was, "between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, an irreconcilable antagonism which results inevitably from their respective stations in life." He stressed "war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is unavoidable" and would only end with the "abolition of the bourgeoisie as a distinct class." In order the worker to "become strong" they "must unite" with other workers in "the union of all local and national workers' associations into a world-wide association, the great International Working-Men's Association." It was only "through practice and collective experience . . . [and] the progressive expansion and development of the economic struggle [that] will bring [the worker] more to recognise his [or her] true enemies: the privileged classes, including the clergy, the bourgeoisie, and the nobility; and the State, which exists only to safeguard all the privileges of those classes." There was "but a single path, that of emancipation through practical action . . . [which] has only one meaning. It means workers' solidarity in their struggle against the bosses. It means trades-unions, organisation, and the federation of resistance funds." Then, "when the revolution -- brought about by the force of circumstances -- breaks out, the International will be a real force and know what it has to do . . . take the revolution into its own hands . . . [and become] an earnest international organisation of workers' associations from all countries [which will be] capable of replacing this departing political world of States and bourgeoisie." ["The Policy of the International", The Basic Bakunin, pp. 97-8, p. 103 and p. 110]

Hardly the words of a man who rejected class conflict, the working class and the collective nature of change! Nor is this an isolated argument from Bakunin, they recur continuously throughout Bakunin's works. For example, he argued that socialists must "[o]rganise the city proletariat in the name of revolutionary Socialism, and in doing this unite it into one preparatory organisation together with the peasantry." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 378] Similarly, he argued that "equality" was the "aim" of the International Workers' Association and "the organisation of the working class its strength, the unification of the proletariat the world over . . . its weapon, its only policy." He stressed that "to create a people's force capable of crushing the military and civil force of the State, it is necessary to organise the proletariat." [quoted by K.J. Kenafick, Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx, p. 95 and p. 254]

Strikes played a very important role in Bakunin's ideas (as they do in all revolutionary anarchist thought). He saw the strike as "the beginnings of the social war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie . . . Strikes are a valuable instrument from two points of view. Firstly, they electrify the masses . . . awaken in them the feeling of the deep antagonism which exists between their interests and those of the bourgeoisie . . . secondly they help immensely to provoke and establish between the workers of all trades, localities and countries the consciousness and very fact of solidarity: a twofold action, both negative and positive, which tends to constitute directly the new world of the proletariat, opposing it almost in an absolute way to the bourgeois world." [cited in Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism 1872-1886, pp. 216-217]

Indeed, for Bakunin, strikes train workers for social revolution as they "create, organise, and form a workers' army, an army which is bound to break down the power of the bourgeoisie and the State, and lay the ground for a new world." [Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, pp. 384-5] Moreover, when "strikes spread from one place to another, they come close to turning into a general strike. And with the ideas of emancipation that now hold sway over the proletariat, a general strike can result only in a great cataclysm which forces society to shed its old skin." The very process of strikes, as noted, would create the framework of a socialist society as "strikes indicate a certain collective strength already" and "because each strike becomes the point of departure for the formation of new groups." [The Basic Bakunin, pp. 149-50] Thus the revolution would be "an insurrection of all the people and the voluntary organisation of the workers from below upward." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 179]

As we argue in sections H.1.4 and I.2.3, the very process of collective class struggle would, for Bakunin and other anarchists, create the basis of a free society. Thus, in Bakunin's eyes, the "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." He saw the free society as being based on "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." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 206 and p. 174] In other words, the basic structure created by the revolution would be based on the working classes own combat organisations, as created in their struggles within, but against, oppression and exploitation.

The link between present and future would be labour unions (workers' associations) created by working people in their struggle against exploitation and oppression. These played the key role in Bakunin's politics both as the means to abolish capitalism and the state and as the framework of a socialist society (this support for workers' councils predates Marxist support by five decades, incidentally). When he became an anarchist, Bakunin always stressed that it was essential to "[o]rganise always more and more the practical militant international solidarity of the toilers of all trades and of all countries, and remember . . . you will find an immense, an irresistible force in this universal collectivity." [quoted by Kenafick, Op. Cit., p. 291] Quite impressive for someone who was a founding father of a theory which, according to Stack, downplayed the "centrality of the working class," argued that the working class was "not the key to change," dismissed "the importance of the collective nature of change" as well as "collective struggle or advance" and "despises the collectivity"! Clearly, to argue that Bakunin held any of these views simply shows that the person making such statements does not have a clue what they are talking about.

The same, needless to say, applies to all revolutionary anarchists. Kropotkin built upon Bakunin's arguments and, like him, based his politics on collective working class struggle and organisation. He consistently stressed that "the Anarchists have always advised taking an active part in those workers' organisations which carry on the direct struggle of Labour against Capital and its protector -- the State." Such struggle, "better than any other indirect means, permits the worker to obtain some temporary improvements in the present conditions of work, while it opens his eyes to the evil done by Capitalism and the State that supports it, and wakes up his thoughts concerning the possibility of organising consumption, production, and exchange without the intervention of the capitalist and the State." [Evolution and Environment, pp. 82-3] In his article on "Anarchism" for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, he stressed that anarchists "have endeavoured to promote their ideas directly amongst the labour organisations and to induce those unions to a direct struggle against capital, without placing their faith in parliamentary legislation." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 287]

Far from denying the importance of collective class struggle, he actually stressed it again and again. As he once wrote, "to make the revolution, the mass of workers will have to organise themselves. Resistance and the strike are excellent means of organisation for doing this." He argued that it was "a question of organising societies of resistance for all trades in each town, of creating resistance funds against the exploiters, of giving more solidarity to the workers' organisations of each town and of putting them in contact with those of other towns, of federating them . . . Workers' solidarity must no longer be an empty word by practised each day between all trades and all nations." [quoted by Caroline Cahm, Op. Cit., pp. 255-6] Kropotkin could not have been clearer.

Clearly, Kropotkin was well aware of the importance of popular, mass, struggles. As he put it, anarchists "know very well that any popular movement is a step towards the social revolution. It awakens the spirit of revolt, it makes men [and women] accustomed to seeing the established order (or rather the established disorder) as eminently unstable." [Words of a Rebel, p. 203] As regards the social revolution, he argues that "a decisive blow will have to be administered to private property: from the beginning, the workers will have to proceed to take over all social wealth so as to put it into common ownership. This revolution can only be carried out by the workers themselves." In order to do this, the masses have to build their own organisation as the "great mass of workers will not only have to constitute itself outside the bourgeoisie . . . it will have to take action of its own during the period which will precede the revolution . . . and this sort of action can only be carried out when a strong workers' organisation exists." This meant, of course, it was "the mass of workers we have to seek to organise. We . . . have to submerge ourselves in the organisation of the people . . . When the mass of workers is organised and we are with it to strengthen its revolutionary idea, to make the spirit of revolt against capital germinate there . . . then it will be the social revolution." [quoted by Caroline Cahm, Op. Cit., pp. 153-4]

He saw the class struggle in terms of "a multitude of acts of revolt in all countries, under all possible conditions: first, individual revolt against capital and State; then collective revolt -- strikes and working-class insurrections -- both preparing, in men's minds as in actions, a revolt of the masses, a revolution." Clearly, the mass, collective nature of social change was not lost on Kropotkin who pointed to a "multitude of risings of working masses and peasants" as a positive sign. Strikes, he argued, "were once 'a war of folded arms'" but now were "easily turning to revolt, and sometimes taking the proportions of vast insurrections." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 144]

And Pat Stack argues that Kropotkin did not see "class conflict as the dynamic for social change," nor "class conflict" as "the motor of change" and the working class "not the agent and collective struggle not the means"! Truly incredible and a total and utter distortion of Kropotkin's ideas on the subject.

As for other anarchists, we discover the same concern over class conflict, collective struggle and organisation and the awareness of a mass social revolution by the working class. Emma Goldman, for example, argued that anarchism "stands for direct action" and that "[t]rade unionism, the economic area of the modern gladiator, owes its existence to direct action . . . In France, in Spain, in Italy, in Russian, nay even in England (witness the growing rebellion of English labour unions), direct, revolutionary economic action has become so strong a force in the battle for industrial liberty as to make the world realise the tremendous importance of labour's power. The General Strike [is] the supreme expression of the economic consciousness of the workers . . . Today every great strike, in order to win, must realise the importance of the solidaric general protest." [Anarchism and Other Essays, pp. 65-6] She places collective class struggle at the centre of her ideas and, crucially, she sees it as the way to create an anarchist society:

"It is this war of classes that we must concentrate upon, and in that connection the war against false values, against evil institutions, against all social atrocities. Those who appreciate the urgent need of co-operating in great struggles . . . must organise the preparedness of the masses for the overthrow of both capitalism and the state. Industrial and economic preparedness is what the workers need. That alone leads to revolution at the bottom . . . That alone will give the people the means to take their children out of the slums, out of the sweat shops and the cotton mills . . . That alone leads to economic and social freedom, and does away with all wars, all crimes, and all injustice." [Red Emma Speaks, pp. 309-10]

For Malatesta, "the most powerful force for social transformation is the working class movement . . . Through the organisations established for the defence of their interests, workers acquire an awareness of the oppression under which they live and of the antagonisms which divide them from their employers, and so begin to aspire to a better life, get used to collective struggle and to solidarity." This meant that anarchists "must recognise the usefulness and importance of the workers' movement, must favour its development, and make it one of the levers of their action, doing all they can so that it . . . will culminate in a social revolution." Anarchists must "deepen the chasm between capitalists and wage-slaves, between rulers and ruled; preach expropriation of private property and the destruction of State." The new society would be organised "by means of free association and federations of producers and consumers." [Life and Ideas, p. 113, pp. 250-1 and p. 184] Alexander Berkman, unsurprisingly, argued the same thing. As he put it, only "the worst victims of present institutions" could abolish capitalism as "it is to their own interest to abolish them. . . labour's emancipation means at the same time the redemption of the whole of society." He stressed that "only the right organisation of the workers can accomplish what we are striving for . . . Organisation from the bottom up, beginning with the shop and factory, on the foundation of the joint interests of the workers everywhere . . . alone can solve the labour question and serve the true emancipation of man[kind]." [The ABC of Anarchism, p. 44 and p. 60

As can be seen, the claim that Kropotkin or Bakunin, or anarchists in general, ignored the class struggle and collective working class struggle and organisation is either a lie or indicates ignorance. Clearly, anarchists have placed working class struggle, organisation and collective direct action and solidarity at the core of their politics (and as the means of creating a libertarian socialist society) from the start.

Also see section H.2.8 for a discussion of the relationship of anarchism to syndicalism.

H.2.3 Does anarchism "yearn for what has gone before"?

Like his other "key point" (namely the rejection of class struggle -- see last section), Stack is simply wrong. Even the quickest look at the works of Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin would convince the reader that this is simply distortion. Rather than look backwards for their ideas of social life, anarchism has always been careful to base its ideas on the current state of society and what anarchist thinkers considered positive current trends within society.

The dual element of progress is important to remember. Capitalism is a class society, marked by exploitation, oppression and various social hierarchies. In such a society progress can hardly be neutral. It will reflect vested interests, the needs of those in power, the rationales of the economic system (e.g. the drive for profits) and those who benefit from it, the differences in power between nations and companies and so on. Equally, it will be shaped by the class struggle, the resistance of the working classes to exploitation and oppression, the objective needs of production, etc. As such, trends in society will reflect the various class conflicts, social hierarchies, power relationships and so on which exist within it.

This is particularly true of the economy. The development of the industrial structure of a capitalist economy will be based on the fundamental need to maximise the profits and power of the capitalists. As such, it will develop (either by market forces or by state intervention) in order to ensure this. This means that various tendencies apparent in capitalist society exist specifically to aid the development of capital. This means that it does not follow that because a society which places profits above people has found a specific way of organising production "efficient" it means that a socialist society will do. As such, anarchist opposition to specific tendencies within capitalism (such as the increased concentration and centralisation of companies) does not mean a "yearning" for the past. Rather, it shows an awareness that capitalist methods are precisely that and that they need not be suited for a society which replaces the profit system with human and ecological need as the criteria for decision making.

For anarchists, this means questioning the assumptions of capitalist progress. This means that the first task of a revolution after the expropriation of the capitalists and the destruction of the state will be to transform the industrial structure and how it operates, not keep it as it is. Anarchists have long argued that that capitalist methods cannot be used for socialist ends. In our battle to democratise and socialise the workplace, in our awareness of the importance of collective initiatives by the direct producers in transforming their work situation, we show that factories are not merely sites of production, but also of reproduction -- the reproduction of a certain structure of social relations based on the division between those who give orders and those who take them, between those who direct and those who execute. Equally, the structure of industry has developed to maximise profits. Why assume that this structure will be equally as efficient in producing useful products by meaningful work which does not harm the environment?

A further aspect of this is that many of the struggles today, from the Zapatistas in Chiapas to those against Genetically Modified (GM) food and nuclear power are precisely based on the understanding that capitalist 'progress' can not be uncritically accepted. To resist the expulsion of people from the land in the name of progress or the introduction of terminator seeds is not to look back to "what had gone", although this is also precisely what the proponents of capitalist globalisation often accuse us of. It is to put "people before profit."

As such, only a sophist would confuse a critical evaluation of trends within capitalism with a yearning for the past. It means to buy into the whole capitalist notion of "progress" which has always been part of justifying the inhumanities of the status quo. Simply put, just because a process is rewarded by the profit driven market it does not mean that it makes sense from a human or ecological perspective. For example, as we argue in section J.5.11, the capitalist market hinders the spread of co-operatives and workers' self-management in spite of their well documented higher efficiency and productivity. From the perspective of the needs of the capitalists, this makes perfect sense. In terms of the workers and efficient allocation of resources, it does not. Would Marxists argue that because co-operatives and workers' self-management of production are marginal aspects of the capitalist economy it means that they will play no part in a sane society or that if a socialist expresses interest in them it means that are "yearning" for a past mode of production? We hope not.

This common Marxist failure to understand anarchist investigations of the future is, ironically enough, joined with a total failure to understand the social conditions in which anarchists have put forward their ideas. Ironically, for all his claims that anarchists ignore "material conditions," it is Pat Stack (and others like him) who does so in his claims against Proudhon. Stack argues that Proudhon (like all anarchists) was "yearning for the past" when he advanced his mutualist ideas. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. This is because the society in which the French anarchist lived was predominately artisan and peasant in nature. This was admitted by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto ("[i]n countries like France" the peasants "constitute far more than half of the population." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 493]). As such, for Proudhon to incorporate the aspirations of the majority of the population is not to "yearn for what has gone before" but rather an extremely sensible position to take.

Therefore, it is hardly an example of Proudhon "yearning for the past" for Stack to mention that Marx dubbed Proudhon ("the founder of modern anarchism") as "the socialist of the small peasant or master craftsman." It is simply unsurprising, a simple statement of fact, as the French working classes were, at the time, predominately small peasants or master craftsmen (or artisans). As K. Steven Vincent points out 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 mid-nineteenth century . . . most French workers were still artisans." Indeed, "[w]hile 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." [Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 5 and p. 282] Proudhon himself noted in 1851 that of a population of 36 million, 24 million were peasants and 6 million were artisans. Of the remaining 6 million, these included wage-workers for whom "workmen's associations" would be essential as "a protest against the wage system," the "denial of the rule of capitalists" and for "the management of large instruments of labour." [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 97-8]

To summarise, if the society in which you live is predominately made-up of peasants and artisans then it is hardly an insult to be called "the socialist of the small peasant or master craftsman." Equally, it can hardly represent a desire for "what has gone before" to tailor your ideas to the actual conditions in the country in which you live! And Stack accuses anarchists of ignoring "material conditions"!

Neither can it be said that Proudhon ignored the development of industrialisation in France during his lifetime. Quite the reverse, in fact, as indicated above. Proudhon did not ignore the rise of large-scale industry. He argued that such industry should be managed by the workers' themselves via workers associations. As he put it, "certain industries" required "the combined employment of a large number of workers" and so the producer is "a collectivity." In such industries "we have no choice" and so "it is necessary to form an association among the workers" because "without that they would remain related as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two industrial castes of masters and wage-workers, which is repugnant to a free and democratic society." [Op. Cit., pp. 215-6]

All in all, Stack is simply showing his ignorance of both Proudhon's ideas and the society (the "material conditions") in which they were shaped and were aimed for. As can be seen, Proudhon incorporated the development of large-scale industry within his mutualist ideas and so the need to abolish wage labour by workers' associations and workers' control of production. Perhaps Stack can fault Proudhon for seeking the end of capitalism too soon and for not waiting patiently will it developed further (if he does, he will also have to attack Marx, Lenin and Trotsky as well for the same failing!), but this has little to do with "yearn[ing] for what has gone before."

After distorting Proudhon's ideas on industry, Stack does the same with Bakunin. He asserts the following:

"Similarly, the Russian anarchist leader Bakunin argued that it was the progress of capitalism that represented the fundamental problem. For him industrialisation was an evil. He believed it had created a decadent western Europe, and therefore had held up the more primitive, less industrialised Slav regions as the hope for change."

Now, it would be extremely interesting to find out where, exactly, Stack discovered that Bakunin made these claims. After all, they are at such odds with Bakunin's anarchist ideas that it is temping to conclude that Stack is simply making it up. This, we suggest, explains the total lack of references for such an outrageous claim. Looking at his main source, we discover Paul Avrich writing that "[i]n 1848" (i.e. nearly 20 years before Bakunin became an anarchist!) Bakunin "spoke of the decadence of Western Europe and saw hope in the primitive, less industrialised Slavs for the regeneration of the Continent." [Op. Cit., p. 8] The plagiarism, again, is obvious, as are the distortions. Given that Bakunin became an anarchist in the mid-1860s, how his pre-anarchist ideas are relevant to an evaluation of anarchism escapes logic. It makes as much sense as quoting Marx to refute fascism as Mussolini was originally the leader of the left-wing of the Italian Socialist Party!

It is, of course, simple to refute Stack's claims. We simply need to do that which he does not, namely quote Bakunin. For someone who thought "industrialisation was an evil," a key aspect of Bakunin's ideas on social revolution was the seizing of industry and its placing under social ownership. As he put it, "capital and all tools of labour belong to the city workers -- to the workers associations. The whole organisation of the future should be nothing but a free federation of workers -- agricultural workers as well as factory workers and associations of craftsmen." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 410] Bakunin argued that "to destroy . . . all the instruments of labour . . . would be to condemn all humanity -- wwhich is infinity too numerous today to exist. . . on the simple gifts of nature. . . -- to. . . death by starvation. Thus capital cannot and must not be destroyed. It must be preserved." Only when workers "obtain not individual but collective property in capital" and when capital is no longer "concentrated in the hands of a separate, exploiting class" will they be able "to smash the tyranny of capital." [The Basic Bakunin, pp. 90-1] He stressed that only "associated labour, this is labour organised upon the principles of reciprocity and co-operation, is adequate to the task of maintaining the existence of a large and somewhat civilised society." Moreover, the "whole secret of the boundless productivity of human labour consists first of all in applying . . . scientifically developed reason . . . and then in the division of that labour." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, pp. 341-2] Hardly the thoughts of someone opposed to industrialisation!

Rather than oppose industrialisation and urge the destruction of industry, Bakunin considered one of the first acts of the revolution would be workers' associations taking over the means of production and turning them into collective property managed by the workers themselves. Hence Daniel Guerin's comment:

"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." ["From Proudhon to Bakunin", The Radical Papers, Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos (ed.), p.32]

Clearly, Stack does not have the faintest idea of what he is talking about! Nor is Kropotkin any safer than Proudhon or Bakunin from Stack's distortions. He claims that:

"Peter Kropotkin, another famous anarchist leader to emerge in Russia, also looked backwards for change. He believed the ideal society would be based on small autonomous communities, devoted to small scale production. He had witnessed such communities among Siberian peasants and watchmakers in the Swiss mountains."

First, we must note the plagiarism. Stack is summarising Paul Avrich's summary of Kropotkin's ideas. [Anarchist Portraits, p. 62] Rather than go to the source material, Stack provides an interpretation of someone else's interpretation of someone else's ideas! Clearly, the number of links in the chain means that something is going to get lost in the process and, of course, it does. The something which "gets lost" is, unfortunately, Kropotkin's ideas.

Ultimately, Stack is simply showing his total ignorance of Kropotkin's ideas by making such a statement. At least Avrich expanded upon his summary to mention that Kropotkin's positive evaluation of using modern technology and the need to apply it on an appropriate level to make work and the working environment as pleasant as possible. As Avrich summarises, "[p]laced in small voluntary workshops, machinery would rescue human beings from the monotony and toil of large-scale capitalist enterprise, allow time for leisure and cultural pursuits, and remove forever the stamp of inferiority traditionally borne by manual labour." [Op. Cit., p. 63] Hardly "backward looking" to desire the application of science and technology to transform the industrial system into one based on the needs of people rather than profit!

Stack must be hoping that the reader has, like himself, not read Kropotkin's classic work Fields, Factories and Workshops for if they have then they would be aware of the distortion Stack subjects Kropotkin's ideas to. While Avrich does present, in general, a reasonable summary of Kropotkin's ideas, he does place it into a framework of his own making. Kropotkin while stressing the importance of decentralising industry within a free society did not look backward for his inspiration. Rather, he looked to trends within existing society, trends he thought pointed in an anti-capitalist direction. This can be seen from the fact he based his classic work Field, Factories and Workshops on detailed analysis of current developments in the economy and came to the conclusion that industry would spread across the global (which has happened) and that small industries will continue to exist side by side with large ones (which also has been confirmed). From these facts he argued that a socialist society would aim to decentralise production, combining agriculture with industry and both using modern technology to the fullest.

As we discuss the fallacy that Kropotkin (or anarchists in general) have argued for "small autonomous communities, devoted to small scale production" in section I.3.8, we will not do so here. Suffice to say, Kropotkin's vision was one of federations of decentralised communities in which production would be based on the "scattering of industries over the country -- so as to bring the factory amidst the fields . . . agriculture . . . combined with industry . . . to produce a combination of industrial with agricultural work." He considered this as "surely the next step to be made, as soon as a reorganisation of our present conditions is possible." Indeed, he though that this step "is imposed by the very necessity of producing for the producers themselves." Kropotkin attempted to show, based on a detailed analysis of modern economic statistics and trends, a vision of a decentralised, federated communal society where "the workers" were "the real managers of industries" and what this would imply once society was free of capitalism. Needless to say, he did not think that this "next step" would occur until "a reorganisation of our present conditions [was] possible." [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, pp. 157-8] In other words, until after a social revolution which expropriated industry and the land and placed social wealth into the hands of the producers. Until then, the positive trends he saw in modern society would remain circumcised by the workings of the capitalist market.

He did not, as is often asserted, argue for "small-scale production" (he still saw the need for factories, for example) but rather for production geared to appropriate levels, based on the objective needs of production (without the distorting effects generated by the needs of capitalist profits and power) and, of necessity, the needs of those who work in and live alongside industry (and today we would add, the needs of the environment). In other words, the transformation of capitalism into a society human beings could live full and meaningful lives in. Part of this would involve creating an industry based on human needs. "Have the factory and the workshop at the gates of your fields and gardens and work in them," he argued. "Not those large establishments, of course, in which huge masses of metals have to be dealt with and which are better placed at certain spots indicated by Nature, but the countless variety of workshops and factories which are required to satisfy the infinite diversity of tastes among civilised men [and women]." The new factories and workplaces would be "airy and hygienic, and consequently economical, . . . in which human life is of more account than machinery and the making of extra profits." [Op. Cit., p. 197] Under capitalism, he argued, the whole discourse of economics (like industrial development itself) was based on the logic and rationale of the profit motive:

"Under the name of profits, rent and interest upon capital, surplus value, and the like, economists have eagerly discussed the benefits which the owners of land or capital, or some privileged nations, can derive, either from the under-paid work of the wage-labourer, or from the inferior position of one class of the community towards another class, or from the inferior economical development of one nation towards another nation. . .

"In the meantime the great question -- 'What have we to produce, and how?' necessarily remained in the background . . . The main subject of social economy -- that is, the economy of energy required for the satisfaction of human needs -- is consequently the last subject which one expects to find treated in a concrete form in economical treatises." [Op. Cit., p. 17]

Kropotkin's ideas were, therefore, an attempt to discuss how a post-capitalist society could develop, based on an extensive investigation of current trends within capitalism, and reflecting the needs which capitalism ignores. As noted above, current trends within capitalism have positive (socialistic) and negative (capitalistic) aspects as capitalist industry has not developed neutrally (it has been distorted by the twin requirements to maintain capitalist profits and power).

For this reason Kropotkin considered the concentration of capital (which most Marxists base their arguments for socialism on) did not, in fact, represent an advance for socialism as it was "often nothing but an amalgamation of capitalists for the purpose of dominating the market, not for cheapening the technical process." [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 154] Indeed, by basing themselves on the trends of capital towards big business, Leninism simply locks itself into the logic of capitalism and, by implication, sees a socialist society which will basically be the same as capitalism, using the technology, industrial structure and industry developed under class society without change. After all, did Lenin not argue that "Socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people"?

Rather than condemn Kropotkin, Stack's comments (and those like them) simply show the poverty of the Leninist critique of capitalism and its vision of the socialist future.

All in all, anyone who claims that anarchism is "backward looking" or "yearns for the past" simply has no idea what they are talking about.

H.2.4 Do anarchists think "the state is the main enemy" rather than just "one aspect" of class society?

H.2.5 Do anarchists think "full blown" socialism will be created overnight?

Lastly, and as an aside, it this anarchist awareness of the disruptive effects of a revolution on a country's economy which, in part, makes anarchists extremely sceptical of pro-Bolshevik rationales that blame the difficult economic conditions facing the Russian Revolution for Bolshevik authoritarianism (see the appendix on "What caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution? " for a fuller discussion of this). If, as Kropotkin argued, a social revolution inevitably results in massive economic disruption then, clearly, Bolshevism should be avoided if it cannot handle such inevitable events. In such circumstances, centralisation would only aid the disruption, not reduce it. This awareness of the problems facing a social revolution also led anarchists to stress the importance of local action and mass participation. As Kropotkin put it, the "immense constructive work demanded by a social revolution cannot be accomplished by a central government . . . It has need of knowledge, of brains and of the voluntary collaboration of a host of local and specialised forces which alone can attack the diversity of economic problems in their local aspects." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, pp. 255-6] Without this local action, co-ordinated joint activity would remain a dead letter.

In summary, anarchists acknowledge that politically there is no transitional period (i.e. the state must be abolished and replaced by a free federation of self-managed working class organisations). Economically anarchists recognise that different areas will develop in different ways and so there will be various economical transitional forms. Rather than seeing "full blown communism" being the instant result of a socialist revolution, anarchist-communists actually argue the opposite -- "full blown communism" will develop only after a successful revolution and the inevitable period of social reconstruction which comes after it. A "full blown" communist economy will develop as society becomes ready for it. What we do argue is that any transitional economic form must be based on the principles of the type of society it desires. In other words, any transitional period must be as communistic as possible if communism is your final aim and, equally, it must be libertarian if your final goal is freedom.

Also see section I.2.2 for further discussion on this issue.

H.2.6 How do Marxists misrepresent Anarchist ideas on mutual aid?

As we have discussed how collective, working class direct action, organisation and solidarity in the class struggle was at the core of Kropotkin's politics in section H.2.2, we will not do so here. Rather, we will discuss how Stack lies about Kropotkin's ideas on mutual aid. As just noted, the examples Stack lists are not to be found in Kropotkin's classic work Mutual Aid. Now, if Kropotkin had considered them as examples of "mutual aid" then he would have listed them in that work. This does not mean, however, that Kropotkin did not mention these examples. He does, but in other works (notably his essay Anarchist Communism) and he does not use them as examples of mutual aid. Just as Stack's examples are not mentioned in Mutual Aid, so Kropotkin fails to use the words "mutual aid" in his essay Anarchist-Communism: Its Basis and Principles. Here is Kropotkin's own words as regards Stack's "examples":

"We maintain, moreover, not only that communism is a desirable state of society, but that the growing tendency of modern society is precisely towards communism -- free communism -- notwithstanding the seemingly contradictory growth of individualism. In the growth of individualism . . . we see merely the endeavours of the individual towards emancipating himself from the steadily growing powers of capital and the State. But side by side with this growth we see also . . . the latent struggle of the producers of wealth to maintain the partial communism of old, as well as to reintroduce communist principles in a new shape, as soon as favourable conditions permit it. . . the communist tendency is continually reasserting itself and trying to make its way into public life. The penny bridge disappears before the public bridge; and the turnpike road before the free road. The same spirit pervades thousands of other institutions. Museums, free libraries, and free public schools; parks and pleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets, free for everybody's use; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendency towards disregarding the exact amount of it used by the individual; tramways and railways which have already begun to introduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surely go much further in this line when they are no longer private property: all these are tokens showing in what direction further progress is to be expected.

"It is in the direction of putting the wants of the individual above the valuation of the service he has rendered, or might render, to society; in considering society as a whole, so intimately connected together that a service rendered to any individual is a service rendered to the whole society." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamplets, pp. 59-60]

As is clear, the examples Stack selects have nothing to do with mutual aid in Kropotkin's eyes. Rather, they are examples of communistic tendencies within capitalism, empirical evidence that can be used to not only show that communism can work but also that it is not a utopian social solution but an expression of tendencies within society. Simply put, he is using examples from existing society to show that communism is not impossible.

Similarly with Stack's other examples. Kropotkin argued that:

"we are struck with the infinitesimal part played by government in our life. . . [A] striking feature of our century tells in favour of the . . . no-government tendency. It is the steady enlargement of the field covered by private initiative, and the recent growth of large organisations resulting merely and simply from free agreement. The railway net of Europe -- a confederation of so many scores of separate societies -- and the direct transport of passengers and merchandise over so many lines which were built independently and federated together, without even so much as a Central Board of European Railways, is a most striking instance of what is already done by mere agreement. . . .

"But there also is no lack of free organisations for nobler pursuits. One of the noblest achievements of our century is undoubtedly the Lifeboat Association. . . . The Hospitals Association and hundreds of like organisations, operating on a large scale and covering each a wide field, may also be mentioned under this head. . . hundreds of societies are constituted every day for the satisfaction of some of the infinitely varied needs of civilised man. . . in short, there is not a single direction in which men exercise their faculties without combining together for the accomplishment of some common aim. Every day new societies are formed, while every year the old ones aggregate together into larger units, federate across the national frontiers, and co-operate in some common work. . . One of the most remarkable societies which has recently arisen is undoubtedly the Red Cross Society . . .

"These facts -- so numerous and so customary that we pass by without even noticing them -- are in our opinion one of the most prominent features of the second half of the nineteenth century. The just-mentioned organisms grew up so naturally, they so rapidly extended and so easily aggregated together, they are such unavoidable outgrowths of the multiplication of needs of the civilised man, and they so well replace State interference, that we must recognise in them a growing factor of our life. Modern progress is really towards the free aggregation of free individuals so as to supplant government in all those functions which formerly were entrusted to it, and which it mostly performed so badly." [Op. Cit., pp. 65-7]

As is clear, Kropotkin was using these examples not as expressions of "mutual aid" but rather as evidence that social life can be organised without government. Just as with communism, he gave concrete examples of libertarian tendencies within society to prove the possibility of an anarchist society. And just like his examples of communistic activities within capitalism, his examples of co-operation without the state are not listed as examples of "mutual aid."

All this would suggest that Stack has either not read Kropotkin's works or that he has and consciously decided to misrepresent his ideas. In fact, its a combination of the two. Stack (as proven by his talk at Marxism 2001) gathered his examples of "mutual aid" from Paul Avrich's essay "Kropotkin's Ethical Anarchism" contained in his Anarchist Portraits. As such, he has not read the source material. Moreover, he simply distorted what Avrich wrote. In other words, not only has he not read Kropotkin's works, he consciously decided to misrepresent the secondary source he used. This indicates the quality of almost all Marxist critiques of anarchism.

For example, Avrich correctly notes that Kropotkin did not "deny that the 'struggle for existence' played an important role in the evolution of species. In Mutual Aid he declares unequivocally that 'life is struggle; and in that struggle the fittest survive.'" Kropotkin simply argued that co-operation played a key role in determining who was, in fact, the fittest. Similarly, Avrich lists many of the same examples Stack presents but not in his discussion of Kropotkin's ideas on mutual aid. Rather, he correctly lists them in his discussion of how Kropotkin saw examples of anarchist communism in modern society and was "manifesting itself 'in the thousands of developments of modern life.'" This did not mean that Kropotkin did not see the need for a social revolution, quite the reverse. As Avrich notes, Kropotkin "did not shrink from the necessity of revolution" as he "did not expect the propertied classes to give up their privileges and possession without a fight." This "was to be a social revolution, carried out by the masses themselves" achieved by means of "expropriation" of social wealth. [Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits, p. 58, p. 62 and p. 66]

So much for Stack's claims. As can be seen, they are not only a total misrepresentation of Kropotkin's work, they are also a distortion of his source!

A few more points need to be raised on this subject.

Firstly, Kropotkin never claimed that mutual aid "was the natural order." Rather, he stressed that Mutual Aid was (to use the subtitle of his book on the subject) "a factor of evolution." Never denying the importance of struggle or competition as a means of survival, he argued that co-operation within a species was the best means for it to survive in a hostile environment. This applied to life under capitalism. In the hostile environment of class society, then the only way in which working class people could survive would be to practice mutual aid (in other words, solidarity). Little wonder, then, that Kropotkin listed strikes and unions as expressions of mutual aid in capitalist society. Moreover, if we take Stack's arguments at face value, then he clearly is arguing that solidarity is not an important factor in the class struggle and that mutual aid and co-operation cannot change the world! Hardly what you would expect a socialist to argue. In other words, his inaccurate diatribe against Kropotkin backfires on his own ideas.

Secondly, Stack's argument that Kropotkin argued that co-operation was the natural order is in contradiction with his other claims that anarchism "despises the collectivity" and "dismiss[es] the importance of the collective nature of change." How can you have co-operation without forming a collective? And, equally, surely support for co-operation clearly implies the recognition of the "collective nature of change"? Moreover, if Stack had bothered to read Kropotkin's classic he would have been aware that he listed both unions and strikes as expressions of "mutual aid" (a fact, of course, which would undermine Stack's argument that anarchists reject collective working class struggle and organisation).

Thirdly, Mutual Aid is primarily a work of popular science and not a work on revolutionary anarchist theory like, say, The Conquest of Bread or Words of a Rebel. As such, it does not present a full example of Kropotkin's revolutionary ideas and how mutual aid fits into them. However, it does present some insights on the question of social progress which indicate that he did not think that "co-operation" was "at the root of the social process," as Stack claims. For example, he notes that "[w]hen Mutual Aid institutions . . . began . . . to lose their primitive character, to be invaded by parasitic growths, and thus to become hindrances to process, the revolt of individuals against these institutions took always two different aspects. Part of those who rose up strove to purify the old institutions, or to work out a higher form of commonwealth." But at the same time, others "endeavoured to break down the protective institutions of mutual support, with no other intention but to increase their own wealth and their own powers." In this conflict "lies the real tragedy of history." He also noted that the mutual aid tendency "continued to live in the villages and among the poorer classes in the towns." Indeed, "in so far as" as new "economical and social institutions" were "a creation of the masses" they "have all originated from the same source" of mutual aid. [Mutual Aid, pp. 18-9 and p. 180]

Kropotkin was well aware that mutual aid (or solidarity) could not be applied between classes in a class society. Indeed, his chapters on mutual aid under capitalism contain the strike and union. As he put it in an earlier work:

"What solidarity can exist between the capitalist and the worker he exploits? Between the head of an army and the soldier? Between the governing and the governed?" [Words of a Rebel, p. 30]

In summary, Stack's assertions about Kropotkin's theory of "Mutual Aid" are simply false. He simply distorts the source material and shows a total ignorance of Kropotkin's work (which he obviously has not bothered to read before criticising it). A truthful account of "Mutual Aid" would involve recognising that Kropotkin show it being expressed in both strikes and labour unions and that he saw solidarity between working people as the means of not only surviving within the hostile environment of capitalism but also as the basis of a mass revolution which would end it.

H.2.7 Who do anarchists see as their "agents of social change"?