Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 18:06:17 +0000
From: Iain McKay <iain.mckay-AT-zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Those annoying (and lying) trots again...


Hello all

the british swp have produced another anti-anarchist diatribe.
This one is the worse I've seen by a long shot. Its so dishonest
its laughable. For those interested it can be found here:

ftp://www.internationalsocialist.org/pubs/sr246/anarchy.246

here is a letter I'm going to send. Any suggestions will be
gratefully received.

Iain

******************************************************************

Dear Socialist Review

It is difficult to know where to start in Pat Stack's "Anarchy in the 
UK?" article (issue no. 246). It contains so many inaccuracies that 
I can only assume that Stack either knows nothing about anarchism 
or is deliberately lying. I know that the SWP wish to combat 
anarchist influence in the anti-globalisation movement but this 
article will surely backfire on you. This is because anyone with 
even a small understanding of anarchist theory and history will 
instantly know that Stack's "analysis" of anarchism is so flawed as 
to be laughable.

Needless to say, I cannot reply to every mistake in the article. I 
will, however, concentrate on some of the more glaring ones in 
order to give your readers a taste of the level of inaccuracy it 
contains.

The most amazing assertion is that anarchists like Kropotkin and 
Bakunin did not see "class conflict" as "the motor of change, the 
working class is not the agent and collective struggle not the 
means." Obviously the author has never read any of Bakunin's and 
Kropotkin's work. Indeed, Kropotkin's The Great French 
Revolution was written explicitly to show "the part played by the 
people of the country and town in the [French] Revolution." He 
did not deny the importance of collective class struggle, rather he 
stressed it. As he 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." Kropotkin 
could not be clearer on this subject. He 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." 

Similarly, Bakunin argued "the natural organisation of the masses 
. . . is organisation based on the various ways that their various 
types of work define their day-to-day life; it is organisation by 
trade association." He thought that the International Workers 
Association should become "an earnest organisation of workers 
associations from all countries, capable of replacing this departing 
world of States and bourgeoisie." In other words, the "future social 
organisation must be made solely from the bottom upwards, by the 
free association of workers, first in their unions, then in the 
communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation, 
international and universal." 

He stresses this vision in his last work Statism and Anarchy: "the 
Slavic proletariat . . . must enter the International [Workers' 
Association] en masse, form[ing] factory, artisan, and agrarian 
sections, and unite them into local federations" as "a social 
revolution . . . is by nature an international revolution." Which, I 
must note, makes a mockery of Stack's claim Bakunin did not see 
"skilled artisans and organised factory workers" as "the source of 
the destruction of capitalism" and "agents for change." 

Bakunin, like Kropotkin, saw a socialist society as being based on 
"the collective ownership of producers' associations, freely 
organised and federated in the communes, and by the equally 
spontaneous federation of these communes." Thus "the land, the 
instruments of work and all other capital [will] become the 
collective property of the whole of society and be utilised only by 
the workers, in other words by the agricultural and industrial 
associations." As can be seen, labour unions (workers' 
associations) 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, I must note). Kropotkin followed 
him in this

Bakunin, like Kropotkin, thought the strike was "the beginnings of 
the social war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie" Strikes, 
he argued, "electrify the masses" and "awaken in them the feeling 
of the deep antagonism which exists between their interests and 
those of the bourgeoisie." They also "establish between the 
workers. . .  the consciousness and very fact of solidarity" These 
"constitute directly the new world of the proletariat, opposing it 
almost in an absolute way to the bourgeois world." The revolution 
would involve "a general strike" and "an insurrection of all the 
people and the voluntary organisation of the workers from below 
upward."

Indeed, you do not have to read Bakunin to find this out, you can 
read Marx and Engels. As Marx noted, Bakunin thought that the 
"working class . . . must only organise themselves by trades-
unions." Engels acknowledged that the anarchists aimed to 
"dispose all the authorities, abolish the state and replace it with 
the organisation of the International." 

Therefore Stack's claim that "the huge advantage" anarcho-
syndicalists have "over other anarchists was their understanding of 
the power of the working class, the centrality of the point of 
production (the workplace) and the need for collective action" is 
simply nonsense. Bakunin and Kropotkin, as can be seen, also 
understood all this. Little wonder that all serious historians see the 
obvious similarities between syndicalism and Bakunin's anarchism. 

As can be seen, the claim Kropotkin or Bakunin, or anarchists in 
general, denied the central role of the working class in 
transforming society, ignored the class struggle or collective 
working class struggle is either a lie or indicates ignorance. 

Similarly, Stack's discussion of Kropotkin's idea of Mutual Aid is 
simply false. This can best be seen when kropotkin discusses 
labour unions and strikes in his book Mutual Aid. He stresses that 
unionism was an "expression" of "the workers' need of mutual 
support." In other words, the realities of capitalism, of exploitation 
and oppression by the boss and by the state, forced workers to 
practice mutual aid (i.e. solidarity) and take collective action 
(strikes) to survive. Mutual aid (or co-operation), in other words, 
was the outcome of class conflict in Kropotkin's eyes. As he wrote 
elsewhere, "the strike develops the sentiment of solidarity."

The author claims that Bakunin "industrialisation was an evil." 
Actually Bakunin argued that "to destroy. . . all the instruments of 
labour. . . would be to condemn all humanity . . . to. . . death by 
starvation." Only when workers "obtain not individual but 
collective property in capital" and capital is no longer 
"concentrated in the hands of a separate, exploiting class" will 
they be able "to smash the tyranny of capital." Similarly, I would 
urge Stack to actually read Kropotkin's classic work Field, 
Factories and Workshops before making such silly comments 
about it. 

I must also note that the implication of Stack's comments is that 
the SWP think that a socialist society 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"? Anarchists, however, are aware that 
capitalist methods and structures cannot be used for socialist ends. 
If they are, as Lenin's Russia proved, the net result is just state 
capitalism.

I could go on, but as I have shown Stack's article is simply a series 
of lies, inaccuracies and misrepresentations. I have indicated just a 
few of the errors above -- space excludes a detailed exposure of it 
all -- but rest assured the rest of the article is as bad. The question 
now arises why such an obviously inaccurate article was printed in 
the first place. I can only assume that either the editor is as 
incompetent as Stack and shares a desire to lie. I hope that the 
ordinary membership of the SWP raise this issue in their branches 
and demand an answer. If they do not, if they accept the murder of 
the truth, then it is only a matter of time until they, like Stack, 
accept the murder of the revolution and the workers fighting for it.

The real differences between anarchism and Marxism can be seen 
from the discussion on Kronstadt. In spite of Stack's assertion, the 
"central demand" of the uprising was, essentially, "all power to the 
soviets and not to parties" (as Paul Avrich noted, "'Soviets without 
Communists' was not, as is often maintained by both Soviet and 
non-Soviet writers, a Kronstadt slogan."). They, like anarchists, 
rejected the idea that soviet power equalled party power. For 
anarchists, a revolution will solve social problems in the interests 
of the working class only if working class people solve them 
themselves. For this to happen it requires working class people to 
manage their own affairs directly and that implies self-managed 
organising from the bottom up (i.e. anarchism) rather than 
delegating power to a minority at the top, to a "revolutionary" 
party or government. As Bakunin argued, the "revolution should 
not only be made for the people's sake; it should also be made by 
the people."

Stack justifies the slaughter at Kronstadt by arguing that the 
Russian working class had been "decimated" by 1921. While there 
is no denying that the urban working class had been greatly 
reduced in number, its ability for collective action (and so 
collective decision making) had not been destroyed. After all, the 
Kronstadt uprising was provoked by a wave of strikes, protest 
meetings and demonstrations (and Bolshevik repression of them) 
in Petrograd. Similar events occurred all across Russia at the same 
time. If workers could organise near general strikes, why could 
they not organise society?

Stack argues that the Bolsheviks could not allow workers to vote 
freely after the end of the Civil War as this would inevitably result 
in White victory, a victory Stack argues the working class "would 
have paid a huge price." The question is, of course, was the 
introducing soviet democracy rather than party power really more 
of a danger than the uncontrolled dictatorship of a single party in a 
deeply bureaucratic and centralised state system? Could the abuses 
and power of the bureaucracy, the extensive privileges and powers 
of party and state officials be combated without a third revolution 
which replaced party dictatorship with soviet self-management? 
History provides the answer with the rise of Stalin. 

Yes, by repressing Kronstadt, Lenin and Trotsky saved the 
revolution -- saved it for Stalin. The ramifications of suppressing 
Kronstadt and the arguments used to justify the "revolutionary" 
Bolshevik dictatorship paved the way for Stalinism, but the SWP 
appear incapable of seeing this.

The economy was in a terrible (partly due to the insane Bolshevik 
policies such as hyper-centralisation, the militarisation of labour 
and eliminating workers' self-management). There were "no 
overnight solutions" but the essential precondition for any 
improvement was freedom. By its very nature a dictatorship 
destroys the creative capacities of a people. The Kronstadt sailors 
and workers were not utopian enough to think that reconstruction 
would occur instantly. Rather, it was the Bolsheviks (and their 
latter-day followers) who were the utopians in thinking 
reconstruction could develop in a socialist manner without the 
active participation of the working class and that such a regime 
could possibly be "revolutionary". 

The issue is simple -- either socialism means the self-emancipation 
of the working class or it does not. Stack's justification for the 
suppression of the Kronstadt revolt simply means that for the 
SWP, when necessary, the party will paternally repress the workers 
for their own good. Indeed, the clear implication of their support of 
the suppression of Kronstadt is that it is dangerous to allow 
working class people to manage society and transform it as they 
see fit as they will make wrong decisions (like vote for the wrong 
party). As Trotsky said at the time: "As if the Party were not 
entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship clashed 
with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!"

Ultimately, Stack's comments show that the SWP's commitment 
to workers' power and democracy is non-existent. If the party 
leaders decide a decision by the masses is incorrect, then the 
masses are overridden (and repressed). What is there left of 
workers' self-emancipation, power or democracy when "the 
workers state" represses the workers for trying to practice these 
essential features of any real form of socialism? It is the experience 
of Bolshevism in power that best refutes the Marxist claim that the 
workers' state "will be democratic and participatory. " The 
Bolshevik suppression of Kronstadt was just one of a series of 
actions by the Bolsheviks which began, before the start of the Civil 
War, with them abolishing soviets which elected non-Bolshevik 
majorities, elected officers and soldiers soviets in the Red Army 
and replacing workers' self-management of production by state-
appointed managers with "dictatorial" powers.

Needless to say, space excludes me from replying to the rest of the 
article. For example, I could have discussed Proudhon's ideas more 
fully and shown that he, like Bakunin and Kropotkin, saw the 
central role of the working class in changing society and how his 
ideas were not solely for the artisan or peasant. I could discuss how 
anarchist's base our politics on the fact of "uneven development" of 
ideas in the working class and how we organise to win people to 
our ideas. Equally, I could indicate why the events of the Spanish 
Revolution indicate a failure of anarchists rather than a failure of 
anarchism. If the reader is interested in finding out what anarchism 
really stands for I would suggest they visit this webpage: 
www.anarchistfaq.org

yours in disgust

Iain McKay