Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 18:44:48 -0400 (AST)
From: Michael C Pugsley <mcpgsly-AT-mta.ca>
Subject: Re: Comments please?


Sounds great so far. Let me know when the other sections are finished. 
I'd love to hear what the Marxistlist would have to say.

On Dec 08, Iain McKay <iain.mckay-AT-zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Hello all
> 
> After Seattle I became somewhat more inspired to work
> on the FAQ. I've already done some work on the individualist
> anarchists and I'm working on section J.7 (on social
> revolution). However, Seattle got me to started on
> the section on Marxism.
> 
> I've knocked up the introduction to it today. I was
> wondering what people thought. Remember its the
> introduction to a whole section, so it cannot cover
> everything. However, I want it to cover the basic
> ground -- namely why anarchists are not marxists and
> refute some of the silly things Marxists say about us.
> 
> The more serious and indepth analysis will come later.
> 
> so, any comments? And sorry for its length. I got
> a bit passonate about it...
> 
> iain
> 
> PS If anyone could give me the a reference for that
> Marx quote, it would save me some time!
> 
> <<<<<<>>>>>>
> 
> Section H - Why do anarchists oppose state socialism?
> 
> The socialist movement has been continually divided, with various
> different tendencies and movements. Two of the main tendencies of
> socialism are state socialism (Marxism, Leninism, Maoism and so on)
> and libertarian socialism (anarchism in all its many forms). The
> conflict and disagreement between anarchists and Marxists is
> legendary. As Benjamin Tucker noted:
> 
> "[I]t is a curious fact that the two extremes of the [socialist
> movement] . . . though united . . . by the common claim that labour
> should be put in possession of its own, are more diametrically 
> opposed to each other in their fundamental principles of social 
> action and their methods of reaching the ends aimed at than
> either is to their common enemy, existing society. They are
> based on two principles the history of whose conflict is almost
> equivalent to the history of the world since man came into it . . .
> 
> "The two principles referred to are AUTHORITY and LIBERTY, and
> the names of the two schools of Socialistic thought which fully
> and unreservedly represent one or the other are, respectively,
> State Socialism and Anarchism. Whoso knows that these two
> schools want and how they propose to get it understands the
> Socialistic movement. For, just as it has been said that there
> is no half-way house between Rome and Reason, so it may be said
> that there is no half-way house between State Socialism and
> Anarchism." [_The Individualist Anarchists_, pp. 78-9]
> 
> In addition to this divide between libertarian and authoritarian
> forms of socialism, there is another divide between reformist and
> revolutionary wings of these two tendencies. "The term 'anarchist,'"
> Murray Bookchin writes, "is a generic word like the term 
'socialist,'
> and there are probably as many different kinds of anarchists are
> there are socialists. In both cases, the spectrum ranges from 
> individuals whose views derive from an extension of liberalism (the 
> 'individualist anarchists', the social-democrats) to revolutionary 
> communists (the anarcho-communists, the revolutionary Marxists, 
> Leninists and Trotskyites)." [_Post-Scarcity Anarchism_, p. 214f]
> 
> In this section of the FAQ we concentrate on the conflict between
> the revolutionary wings of both movements. Here we discuss why
> communist-anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists and other revolutionary
> anarchists reject Marxist theories, particularly the revolutionary
> ideas of Leninists and Trotskyites. We will concentrate almost
> entirely on the works of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky as well as the
> Russian Revolution. This is because many Marxists reject the 
Chinese,
> Cuban and other revolutions as being infected by Stalinism. In 
> contrast, there is a general agreement in Marxist circles that
> the Russian Revolution was a true socialist revolution and the 
> ideas of Lenin (and usually Trotsky) follow in Marx's footsteps.
> What we say against Marx and Lenin is also applicable to their
> more controversial followers, therefore we ignore them. We also 
> dismiss out of hand any suggestion that the Stalinist regime was 
> remotely socialist. Unfortunately many serious revolutionaries 
> consider Lenin's regime to be a valid example of a valid socialist 
> revolution so we have to discuss why it was not. 
> 
> As noted, two main wings of the revolutionary socialist movement, 
> anarchism and Marxism, have always been in conflict. While, with 
> the apparent success of the Russian revolution, the anarchist 
> movement was overshadowed by its authoritarian name-sake in many 
> countries, this situation has been changing. In recent years 
anarchism 
> has seen a revival as more and more people recognise the 
fundamentally 
> anti-socialist nature of the Russian "experiment" and the politics 
that 
> inspired it. With this re-evaluation of socialism and the Soviet 
Union, 
> more and more people are rejecting Marxism and embracing libertarian 
> socialism. As can be seen from the press coverage from such events 
as 
> the anti-Poll Tax riots in the UK at the start of the 1990s, the J18 
> and N30 anti-capitalist demonstrations in 1999, anarchism has become
> synonymous with anti-capitalism. 
> 
> Needless to say, the self-proclaimed "vanguard(s) of the 
proletariat" 
> become worried and hurriedly write patronising articles on 
"anarchism" 
> (without bothering to really understand it or its arguments against 
> Marxism). These articles are usually a mishmash of lies, irrelevant
> personal attacks, distortions of the anarchist position and the 
> ridiculous assumption that anarchists are anarchists because no one
> has bothered to inform of us of what "Marxism" is "really" about. We 
> do not aim to repeat such "scientific" analysis in our FAQ so we 
shall 
> concentrate on politics and history. By so doing we will indicate 
that 
> anarchists are anarchists because we understand Marxism and reject 
it 
> as being unable to lead to a socialist society.
> 
> It is unfortunately common for many Marxists, particularly Leninist 
> influenced ones, to concentrate on personalities and not politics 
> when discussing anarchist ideas. Albert Meltzer put it well when he
> argued that it is "very difficult for Marxist-Leninists to make an 
> objective criticism of Anarchism, as such, because by its very 
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. Marxists therefore, 
normally 
> refrain from criticising anarchism as such -- unless driven to doing 
so, 
> when it exposes its own authoritarianism . . . and concentrates its
> attack 
> not on *anarchism*, but on *anarchists*" [_Anarchism: Arguments For 
and
> Against_, p. 37]
> 
> This can be seen, for example, when many Leninists attempt to 
"refute" 
> the whole of anarchism, its theory and history, by pointing out the 
> personal failings of specific anarchists. They say that Proudhon was 
> anti-jewish and sexist, that Bakunin was racist, that Kropotkin 
> supported the Allies in the First World War and so anarchism is 
> flawed. All these facts about Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin are 
> true and they are all irrelevant to a critique of anarchism. Such a 
> "critique" does not address anarchist ideas, all of which are 
ignored 
> by this approach. In other words, they attack anarchists, not 
anarchism. 
> 
> Even taken at face value, you would have to be stupid to assume that 
> Proudhon's misogyny or Bakunin's racism had equal weighting with 
Lenin's 
> and the Bolsheviks' behaviour (for example, the creation of a party 
> dictatorship, the repression of strikes, free speech, independent 
> working class organisation, the creation of a secret police force, 
> the attack on Kronstadt, the betrayal of the Makhnovists, the 
violent
> repression of the Russian anarchist movement, etc.) in the league 
> table of despicable activity. It seems strange that personal bigotry 
> is of equal, or even more, importance in evaluating a political 
> theory than its practice during a revolution.
> 
> Moreover, such a technique is ultimately dishonest. Looking at 
> Proudhon, for example, Proudhon's anti-semitic outbursts remained 
> unpublished in his note books until well after his ideas and, as 
> Robert Graham points out, "a reading of _General Idea of the 
> Revolution_ will show, anti-semitism forms no part of Proudhon's 
> revolutionary programme." ["Introduction", _The General Idea of 
> the Revolution_, p. xxxvi] Similarly, Bakunin's racism is an 
> unfortunate aspect of his life, an aspect which is ultimately
> irrelevant to the core principles and ideas he argued for. 
> Moreover, Bakunin and his associates totally rejected Proudhon's 
> sexism and argued for complete equality between the sexes. Why
> mention these aspects of their ideas at all? They are irrelevant
> to evaluating anarchism as a viable political theory. To do so
> is to dishonestly imply that anarchism is racist and sexist,
> which it is not.
> 
> If we look at Kropotkin's support for the Allies in the First World 
> War we discover a strange hypocrisy on the part of Marxists as well 
> as an attempt to distort history. Why hypocrisy? Simply because Marx 
> and Engels supported the Prussian during the Franco-Prussian war (in 
> contrast, Bakunin argued for a popular uprising and social 
revolution
> to stop the war). As Marx wrote to Engels:
> 
> "The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the 
centralisation
> of the power of the State will be useful for the centralisation of
> the German working class. German predominance, moreover, would shift
> the centre of gravity of the European working-class movement from
> France to Germany . . . The predominance on the world's stage of
> the German working class over the French would also mean the
> predominance of our theory over Proudhon's." [_XXX_, p. XXX]
> 
> Marx, in part, supported the deaths of working class people in war
> in order to see *his* ideas become more important than Proudhon's! 
> At least Kropotkin supported the allies because he was against the
> dangers to freedom implied by the German military state. The 
hypocrisy
> of the Marxists is clear -- if anarchism is to be condemned for
> Kropotkin's actions, then Marxism must be equally condemned for
> Marx's.
> 
> This analysis also rewrites history as the bulk of the Marxist
> movement supported their respective states during the conflict.
> A handful of the parties of the Second International opposed the
> war (and those were the smallest ones as well). In contrast, only 
> a *very* small minority of anarchists supported any side during 
> the conflict. The bulk of the anarchist movement (including such
> leading lights as Malatesta, Rocker, Goldman and Berkman) opposed 
> the war, arguing that anarchists must "capitalise upon every 
stirring 
> of rebellion, every discontent in order to foment insurrection, to
> organise the revolution to which we look for the ending of all
> of society's iniquities." [_No Gods, No Masters_, vol. 2., p. 36]
> By pointing to Kropotkin, Marxists hide the fact that it was
> the official Marxist movement which betrayed the cause of 
> internationalism, not anarchism. Indeed, the betrayal of the
> Second International was the natural result of the "predominance" 
> of Marxism over anarchism that Marx had hoped. The rise of Marxism,
> in the form of social-democracy, ended as Bakunin predicted, with 
the 
> corruption of socialism in the quagmire of electioneering and 
statism.
> 
> We will not follow this common Marxist approach here as the failings 
of 
> Marxism, particularly in its Leninist form, come not from the 
personal 
> failings of individuals but from their politics and how they would 
work 
> in practice. No one ever lives up totally to their ideals in 
practice, 
> we are all human and pointing out individual faults does not 
undermine 
> the theory they contributed to. If this was the case then Marxism 
would 
> be "refuted" because of Marx and Engel's anti-Slav feelings and 
their 
> support for the German State during the Franco-Prussian war of 1871.
> 
> Rather, we will analyse Marxism in terms of its theories and how
> these theories worked in practice. Thus we will conduct a scientific
> analysis of Marxism, looking at its claims and comparing them to
> what they achieved in practice. Few, if any, Marxists present such
> an analysis of their own politics, which makes Marxism more a belief 
> system rather than analysis. For example, many Marxists point to
> the success of the Russian Revolution and argue that while 
anarchists
> attack Trotsky and Lenin for being statists and authoritarians, that
> statism and authoritarianism saved the revolution.
> 
> In reply, anarchists point out that the Marxist revolution *did,*
> in fact, fail. After all, the aim of those revolutions was to create 
> a free, democratic, classless society of equals. In fact it created 
a 
> one party dictatorship based around a class system of bureaucrats 
> exploiting and dominating working class people and society lacking 
> equality and freedom. As the stated aims of the Marxist revolution 
> failed to materialise, anarchists would argue that those revolutions 
> failed even though a "Communist" Party remained in power for over 
> 70 years. And as for statism and authoritarianism "saving" the 
> revolution, they saved it for Stalin, not socialism. That is nothing 
> to be proud of.
> 
> >From an anarchist perspective, this makes perfect sense as "[n]o
> revolution can ever succeed as factor of liberation unless the
> MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency
> with the PURPOSE to be achieved." [Emma Goldman, _Patterns of
> Anarchy_, p. 113] In other words, statist and authoritarian means
> will result in statist and authoritarian ends. Calling a new state 
> a "workers state" will not change the states nature as a form of 
> minority (and so class) rule. It has nothing to do with the ideas
> or nature of those who gain power, it has to do with the nature of
> the state and the social relationships it generates.
> 
> Similarly, in spite of over 100 years of socialists and radicals
> using elections to put forward their ideas and the resulting 
> corruption of every party which has done so, most Marxists still
> call for socialists to take part in elections. For a theory which
> calls itself scientific this ignoring of empirical evidence, the
> facts of history, is truly amazing. Marxism ranks with economics 
> as the "science" which most consistently ignores history and 
> evidence. 
> 
> Indeed, this refusal to look at factual evidence can be seen from
> the common comment Marxists make of anarchists, namely that we
> are "petty-bourgeois." For anarchists, such comments indicate that,
> for many Marxists, class is more a source of insults than analysis.
> This can be seen when Marxists state that, say, Kropotkin or Bakunin
> was "petty-bourgeois." As if a member of the Russian ruling class
> could be petty-bourgeois! If we look at class as an socio-economic
> fact and a social relationship (which it is) rather than an insult, 
> then we discover if Bakunin and Kropotkin were "petty-bourgeois" 
then 
> so was Marx, for they both shared the same socio-economic situation! 
> Nor can it explain how Marx (a member of the petty-bourgeois, a 
> journalist) and Engels (an *actual* bourgeois, a factory owner!) 
> could have created a "proletarian science." After all, in order to 
> be a "proletarian" theory it must be developed by working class 
> people in struggle. It was not. Albert Meltzer explains the 
> problems Marxists face when they call us "petty-bourgeois":
> 
> "This leads them into another difficulty: How can one reconcile the
> existence of anarcho-syndicalist unions with 'petty bourgeois' 
origins
> -- and how does one get over the fact that most Marxist-Leninists
> of today are professional ladies and gentlemen studying for or
> belonging to the professions? The answer is usually given that
> *because* anarchism is 'petty bourgeois' those embracing it --
> 'whatever their occupation or social origins' must also be 
> 'petty bourgeois.' Thus because 'Marxism is working class', its
> adherents must be working class 'at least subjectively.' This is
> a sociological absurdity, as if 'working class' meant an
> ideological viewpoint. It is also a built in escape clause."
> [Op. Cit., p. 39]
> 
> As this section of the FAQ will make clear, this name calling
> and concentration on the personal failings of individual anarchists
> by Marxists is not an accident. If we take the ability of a theory
> to predict future events as an indication of its power then it soon 
> becomes clear that anarchism is far more useful a tool in working
> class struggle than Marxism. After all, anarchists predicted with
> amazing accuracy the future development of Marxism. Bakunin argued
> that electioneering would corrupt the socialist movement, making it
> reformist and just another bourgeois party (see section J.2). This 
> is what in fact happened to the Social-Democratic movement across 
> the world by the turn of the twentieth century (the rhetoric 
remained 
> radical for a few more years, of course). Murray Bookchin's comments 
> about the German Social Democrats are appropriate here:
> 
> "[T]he party's preoccupation with parliamentarism was taking it
> ever away from anything Marx had envisioned. Instead of working
> to overthrow the bourgeois state, the SPD, with its intense
> focus on elections, had virtually become an engine for getting
> votes and increasing its Reichstag representation within the
> bourgeois state . . . The more artful the SPD became in there
> realms, the more its membership and electorate increased and,
> with the growth of new pragmatic and opportunistic adherents, 
> the more it came to resemble a bureaucratic machine for 
> acquiring power under capitalism rather than a revolutionary
> organisation to eliminate it." [_The Second Revolution_, vol. 2,
> p. 300]
> 
> The reality of working within the state soon transformed the
> party and its leadership, as Bakunin predicted. If we look at
> the 1920s, we discover a similar failure to consider the
> evidence:
> 
> "From the early 1920s on, the Leninist attachment to pre-WWI
> social democratic tactics such as electoral politics and political
> activity within pro-capitalist labour unions dominated the
> perspectives of the so-called Communist. But if these tactics
> were correct ones, why didn't they lead to a less dismal
> set of results? We must be materialists, not idealists. What
> was the actual outcome of the Leninist strategies? Did
> Leninist strategies result in successful proletarian revolutions,
> giving rise to societies worthy of the human beings that live
> in them? The revolutionary movement in the inter-war period
> was defeated. . ." [Max Anger, "The Spartacist School of
> Falsification", _Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed_, no. 43,
> Spring/Summer 1997, pp. 51-2]
> 
> As Scottish Anarchist Ethel McDonald argued in 1937, the
> tactics urged by Lenin were a disaster in practice:
> 
> "At the Second Congress of the Third International, Moscow, a
> comrade who is with us now in Spain, answering Zinoview, urged
> faith in the syndicalist movement in Germany and the end of
> parliamentary communism. He was ridiculed. Parliamentarianism,
> communist parliamentarianism, but still parliamentartarianism
> would save Germany. And it did. . . Saved it from Socialism.
> Saved it for Fascism." ["The Volunteer Ban", _Workers City_,
> Farquhar McLay (ed.), p. 74]
> 
> When the Nazi's took power in 1933 in Germany the 12 million 
> Socialist and Communist voters and 6 million organised workers 
> took no action. In Spain, it was the anarcho-syndicalist CNT
> which lead the battle against fascism on the streets and helped
> create one of the most important social revolutions the world
> has seen. The contrast could not be more clear. And many Marxists 
> urge us to follow Lenin's advice today!
> 
> If we look at the "workers' states" created by Marxists, we
> discover, yet again, anarchist predictions proved right. Bakunin
> argued that "[b]y popular government they [the Marxists] mean
> government of the people by a small under of representatives
> elected by the people. . . [That is,] government of the vast
> majority of the people by a privileged minority. But this
> minority, the Marxists say, will consist of workers. Yes, 
> perhaps, of *former* workers, who, as soon as they become
> rulers or representatives of the people will cease to be
> workers and will begin to look upon the whole workers' world
> from the heights of the state. They will no longer represent
> the people but themselves and their own pretensions to govern
> the people." [_Statism and Anarchy_, p. 178] The history of
> every Marxist revolution proves Bakunin was right.
> 
> Due to these "workers' states" socialism has become associated
> with repressive regimes, with totalitarian regimes the total
> opposite of what socialism is actually about. Nor does it
> help when self-proclaimed socialists (such as Trotskyites)
> "obscenely describe regimes that exploit, imprison and
> murder wage labourers in Cuba, North Korea, and China as
> 'workers' states'" [Max Anger, Op. Cit., p. 52] Little wonder
> many anarchists do not use the terms "socialist" or "communist"
> and just call themselves "anarchists." They are associated with 
> regimes which have nothing in common with our ideas, or, indeed, 
> the ideas of socialism as such.
> 
> This does not mean that anarchists reject everything Marx wrote. 
> Far from it. Much of his analysis of capitalism is acceptable to 
> anarchists, for example (both Bakunin and Tucker considered Marx's 
> economic analysis as important). Indeed, there are some schools
> of Marxism which are very libertarian and are close cousins to
> anarchism (for example, council communism and autonomist Marxism
> are close to revolutionary anarchism). Unfortunately, these forms
> of Libertarian Marxism are a minority current within that movement.
> 
> In other words, Marxism is not all bad -- unfortunately the vast
> bulk of it is and those elements which are not are found in 
> anarchism anyway. For most, Marxism is the school of Marx, Engels,
> Lenin and Trotsky, not Marx, Pannekoek, Gortor, Ruhle and Mattick.
> The minority libertarian trend of Marxism is based, like anarchism,
> on a rejection of party rule, electioneering and creating a 
"workers'
> state." They also, like anarchists, support direct action, 
self-managed 
> class struggle, working class autonomy and a self-managed socialist 
> society. These Marxists oppose the dictatorship of the party over 
> the proletariat and, in effect, agree with Bakunin when he argued
> against Marx that socialists should "not accept, even in the process
> of revolutionary transition, either constituent assemblies, 
> provisional governments or so-called revolutionary dictatorships;
> because we are convinced that revolution is only sincere, honest
> and real in the hands of the masses, and that when it is
> concentrated in those of a few ruling individuals it inevitably
> and immediately becomes reaction." Like Bakunin, they think
> that "a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations 
> . . . organised from the bottom upwards" will be the basis of a new 
> society (Libertarian Marxists usually call these associations 
workers' 
> councils). [_Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings_, p. 237 and p. 172]
> 
> These libertarian forms of Marxism should be encouraged and not 
> tarred with the same brush as Leninism and social democracy. Over
> time, hopefully, such comrades will see that the libertarian element
> of their thought outweighs the Marxist legacy. So our comments in
> this section of the FAQ are mostly directed to the majority form
> of Marxism, not to its libertarian wing.
> 
> One last point. We should point out that in the past many leading 
> Marxists have argued that anarchism and socialism where miles apart: 
> indeed, that anarchism was not a form of socialism. The leading 
American 
> Marxist Daniel De Leon took this line, along with many others. This 
is 
> true, in a sense, as anarchists are not *Marxian* socialists -- we
> reject 
> such "socialism" as deeply authoritarian. Anarchists *are* members 
of 
> the socialist movement and reject attempts by Marxists to monopolise 
> the term. However, in this section we may find it useful to use the 
> term socialist/communist to describe "state socialist" and anarchist 
> to describe "libertarian socialist/communist." This in no way 
implies 
> that anarchists are not socialists. It is purely a tool to make our 
> arguments easier to read.
> 
> In the sections that follow we will discuss Marxism and the practice
> of Marxists power. This will indicate why anarchists reject it in 
> favour of a *libertarian* form of socialism.
> 
> 
>