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 Demands for bread and attacks on bakeries were superseded by a massive demonstration of women workers on International Women's Day.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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