File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2000/anarchy-list.0009, message 189


Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 17:33:49 -0400
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Marxism and "Anarchism": A reply to the SWP: Part One


The complete series will be posted at
http://www.infoshop.org/texts/iso.html

Marxism and "Anarchism": A reply to the SWP

Part One

The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci once wrote that "to tell the truth
is a communist and revolutionary act." Sadly, when it comes to
anarchism, Marxists rarely tell the truth. Instead, they usually produce
a series of slanders and lies.

In issue no. 1714 of Socialist Worker (dated 16th September 2000) the
British SWP decided to "expose" anarchism in an article entitled
"Marxism and Anarchism." However, their article is little more than a
series of errors and distortions. We shall indicate how the SWP lies
about anarchist ideas and discuss the real differences between anarchism
and Marxism.
The inspiration for their diatribe is clear-they are worried about
anarchist influence in the various anti-capitalist and
anti-globalisation movements and demonstrations which are currently
occurring across the world. As they put it:

"The great revolt against capitalism in Seattle last year, and similar
demonstrations since, have attracted diverse groups of protesters."
Yes, indeed, anarchists have been involved in these demonstrations from
the start, unlike "vanguard" parties like the SWP who only became aware
of the significance of these movements once they exploded in the
streets. That in itself should tell us something about the effectiveness
of the Bolshevik inspired politics the SWP raise as an alternative to
anarchism. Rather than being at the vanguard of these demonstrations and
movements, parties like the SWP have been, post-Seattle, busy trying to
catch up with them. Nor is this the only time this has happened. 

In Russia, in February 1917, for example, the Bolshevik party opposed
the actions that produced the revolution which overthrew the Tsar. After
weeks of strikes with police attacks on factories, the most oppressed
part of the working class, the women textile workers, took the
initiative. Demands for bread and attacks on bakeries were superseded by
a massive demonstration of women workers on International Women's Day.
The women had ignored a local Bolshevik directive to wait until May Day!
The early slogan of "Bread !" was quickly followed by "Down with the
autocracy! Down with the war!" By February 24th, half of Petrograd was
on strike. The workers did go to their factories, not to work, but to
hold meetings, pass resolutions and then go out to demonstrate. The
Vyborg committee of the Bolsheviks opposed the strikes. Luckily for the
Russian workers, and unfortunately for the Tsar, the Bolsheviks were
ignored.

Similarly, during the British Poll Tax rebellion of the late 1980s, the
SWP dismissed the community based mass non-payment campaign.  Instead
they argued for workers to push their trade unions leadership to call
strikes to overthrow the tax. Indeed, the even argued that there was a
"danger that community politics divert people from the means to won,
from the need to mobilise working class activity on a collective basis"
by which they meant trade union basis.  They argued that the state
machine would "wear down community resistance if it cannot tap the
strength of the working class." However, once non-payment began in
earnest and showed hundreds of thousands involved and refusing to pay,
overnight the SWP became passionate believers in the collective class
power of community based non-payment. They argued, in direct
contradiction to their earlier analysis, that the state was "shaken by
the continuing huge scale of non-payment." (Trotwatch, Carry on
Recruiting)

Therefore, the fact that the self-proclaimed "vanguard of the
proletarian" is actually miles behind the struggle comes as no surprise.
Nor are their slanders against those, like anarchists, who are at the
front of the struggle unsurprising.  They produced similar articles
during the poll tax rebellion as well, to counter anarchist influence by
smearing our ideas.
 
The SWP continue:

"Anarchists, amongst others, have taken part in all of those protests.
Anarchism is generally taken to mean a rejection of all authority."
One question immediately arises. What do anarchists mean by the term
"authority"? Without knowing that, it will be difficult to evaluate the
SWP's arguments.

Kropotkin provides the answer. He argued that "the origin of the
anarchist inception of society . . . [lies in] the criticism . . .  of
the hierarchical organisations and the authoritarian conceptions of
society; and . . . the analysis of the tendencies that are seen in the
progressive movements of mankind." He stresses that anarchism "refuses
all hierarchical organisation"

Thus anarchism rejects authority in the sense, to use Malatesta's words,
of "the delegation of power, that is the abdication of initiative and
sovereignty of all into the hands a few." Once this is clearly
understood, it will quickly been seen that the SWP create a straw man to
defeat in argument.

The SWP correctly argue that we "live in a world of bullying line
managers, petty school rules, oppressive police, and governments that
serve the rich and powerful." However, they trivialise anarchism (and
the natural feelings that result from such domination) by stating
"Everyone who hates that has, at least at times, felt a streak of
'anarchist' revolt against authority." Thus anarchism is presented as an
emotional response rather than as valid, coherent intellectual
opposition to hierarchical authority, an authority which serves its own
interests as well as the rich and powerful. But, of course, anarchism is
more than this, as the SWP acknowledge:

"Anarchism, however, is more than a personal reaction against the
tyrannies of capitalism. It is a set of political beliefs which have
been held up as an alternative to the revolutionary socialist ideas of
Karl Marx. Anarchist ideas have, on occasion, had a mass influence on
movements against capitalism."

Given that the "revolutionary socialist ideas" of Marx have been proven
wrong on numerous occasions while Bakunin's predicted were proven right,
anarchists humbly suggest that anarchism is a valid alternative to
Marxism. For example, Bakunin correctly predicted that when "the workers
. . . send common workers . . . to Legislative Assemblies . . . The 
worker-deputies, transplanted into a bourgeois environment, into an
atmosphere of purely bourgeois ideas, will in fact cease to be workers
and, becoming Statesmen, they will become bourgeois . . . For men do not
make their situations; on the contrary, men are made by them." The
history of the Marxist Social Democratic Parties across the world proved
him right. Similarly, Bakunin predicted that Marx's "dictatorship of the
proletariat" would become the "dictatorship over the proletariat." The
experience of the Russian Revolution proved him correct.

The SWP continue by arguing:

"Socialists and anarchists share a hatred of capitalism. They have often
fought alongside each other in major battles against the capitalist
system. They struggled together in the Europe-wide mass strikes at the
end of the First World War and the inspiring Spanish Revolution in 1936,
as well as in countless smaller battles today."

Which is true. They also fail to mention that the mass-strikes at the
end of the First World War were defeated by the actions of the
Social-Democratic Parties and trade unions. These parties were
self-proclaimed revolutionary Marxist organisations, utilising (as Marx
had argued) the ballot box and centralised organisations. 
Unsurprisingly, given the tactics and structure, reformism and
bureaucracy had developed within them. When workers took strike action,
even occupying their factories in Italy, the bureaucracy of the Social
Democratic Parties and trade unions acted to undermine the struggle,
isolating workers and supporting capitalism. The Marxist movement had
degenerated into bourgeois parties, as Bakunin predicted.

It is also strange that the SWP mention that "inspiring Spanish
Revolution in 1936" as this revolution was mainly anarchist in its
"inspiring" features. Workers took over workplaces and the land,
organising them under workers' self-management. Direct democracy was
practised by hundreds of thousands of workers in line with the
organisational structures of the anarchist union the CNT. In contrast,
the Russian Revolution saw power become centralised into the hands of
the Bolshevik party leadership and workers' self-management of
production was eliminated in favour of one-man management imposed from
above (see M. Brinton's The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control for
details).

The SWP continue by arguing that "there are differences between
revolutionary socialism and anarchism. Both understand the need for
organisation but disagree over what form that organisation takes." This
is a vast step forward in the usual Marxist slander that anarchists
reject the need for organisation and so should be welcomed.
Unfortunately the rest of the discussion on this issue falls back into
the usual swamp of slander.

They argue that "Every struggle, from a local campaign against housing
privatisation to a mass strike of millions of workers, raises the need
for organisation. People come together and need mechanisms for deciding
what to do and how to do it." They continue by arguing that "Anarchism
says that organisation has nothing to do with centralisation. For
anarchism, any form of centralisation is a type of authority, which is
oppressive." This is true, anarchists do argue that centralisation
places power at the centre, so disempowering the people at the base of
an organisation. In order to co-ordinate activity anarchists propose
federal structures, made up on mandated delegates from autonomous
assemblies. In this way, co-ordination is achieved while ensuring that
power remains at the bottom of the organisation, in the hands of those
actually fighting or doing the work. Federalism does not deny the need
to make agreements and to co-ordinate decisions. Far from it -- it was
put forward by anarchists precisely to ensure co-ordination of joint
activity and to make agreements in such a way as to involve those
subject to those decisions in the process of making them. In other
words, it is the means to combine participation and co-ordination and to
create an organisation run from the bottom up rather than the top-down.
As can be seen, anarchists do not oppose co-ordination and co-operation,
making agreements and implementing them together.

After mentioning centralisation, the SWP make a massive jump of logic
and assert:
"But arguing with someone to join a struggle, and trying to put forward
tactics and ideas that can take it forward are attempts to lead. 

"It is no good people coming together in a struggle, discussing what to
do and then doing just what they feel like as if no discussion had taken
place. We always need to take the best ideas and act on them in a united
way."

Placing ideas before a group of people is a "lead" but it is not
centralisation. Moreover, anarchists are not against making agreements!
Far from it. The aim of federal organisation is to make agreements, to
co-ordinate struggles and activities. This does not mean ignoring
agreements. As Kropotkin argued, the commune "cannot any longer
acknowledge any superior: that, above it, there cannot be anything, save
the interests of the Federation, freely embraced by itself in concert
with other Communes." This vision was stressed in the CNT's resolution
on Libertarian Communism made in May, 1936, which stated that "the
foundation of this administration will be the Commune. These Communes
are to be autonomous and will be federated at regional and national
levels for the purpose of achieving goals of a general nature. The right
of autonomy is not to preclude the duty of implementation of agreements
regarding collective benefits." Hence anarchists do not see making
collective decisions and working in a federation as an abandonment of
autonomy or a violation of anarchist theory.

They continue by arguing:

"Not all authority is bad. A picket line is 'authoritarian.' It tries to
impose the will of the striking workers on the boss, the police and on
any workers who may be conned into scabbing on the strike." 

What should strike the reader about this "example" is its total lack of
class analysis. In this the SWP follow Engels. In his essay On
Authority, Engels argues that a "revolution is certainly the most
authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the
population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles,
bayonets and cannon-authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if
the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must
maintain this rule by means of the terror its arms inspire in the
reactionaries."

However, such an analysis is without a class basis and so will, by
necessity, mislead the writer and the reader. Engels argues that
revolution is the imposition by "one part of the population" on another.
Very true - but Engels fails to indicate the nature of class society
and, therefore, of a social revolution. In a class society "one part of
the population" constantly "imposes its will upon the other part" all
the time. In other words, the ruling class imposes its will on the
working class everyday in work by the hierarchical structure of the
workplace and in society by the state. By discussing the "population" as
if it was not divided by classes, and so subject to specific forms of
authoritarian social relationships, is liberal nonsense. Once we
recognise that the "population" in question is divided into classes we
can easily see the fallacy of Engels argument. In a social revolution,
the act of revolution is the overthrow of the power and authority of an
oppressing and exploiting class by those subject to that oppression and
exploitation. In other words, it is an act of liberation in which the
hierarchical power of the few over the many is eliminated and replaced
by the freedom of the many to control their own lives. It is hardly
authoritarian to destroy authority! Thus a social revolution is,
fundamentally, an act of liberation for the oppressed who act in their
own interests to end the system in which "one part of population imposes
its will upon the other" everyday. 

This applies equally to the SWP's example of a picket line. Is a picket
line really authoritarian because it tries to impose its will on the
boss, police or scabs? Rather, is it not defending the workers' freedom
against the authoritarian power of the boss and their lackeys (the
police and scabs)? Is it "authoritarian" to resist authority and create
a structure - a strike assembly and picket line - which allows the
formally subordinated workers to manage their own affairs directly and
without bosses? Is it "authoritarian" to combat the authority of the
boss, to proclaim your freedom and exercise it? Of course not. The SWP
are playing with words.
Needless to say, it is a large jump from the "authority" of a strikers'
assembly to that of a highly centralised "workers' state" but that, of
course, is what the SWP wish the reader to do. Comparing a strikers'
assembly and picket line -  which is a form of self-managed association
- with a state cannot be done. It fails to recognise the fundamental
difference.  In the strikers' assembly and picket line the strikers
themselves decide policy and do not delegate power away. In a state,
power is delegated into the hands of a few who then use that power as
they see fit. This by necessity disempowers those at the base, who are
turned into mere electors and order takers. Such a situation can only
spell death of a social revolution, which requires the active
participation of all if it is to succeed.  It also exposes the central
fallacy of Marxism, namely that it claims to desire a society based on
the participation of everyone yet favours a form of organisation -
centralisation - that precludes that participation.

   

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