The Meaning of Freedom (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is liberation? The words which need most careful use are, usually, those which are thought to be above it. In an essay on George Orwell published in 1948, George Woodcock remarks how Orwell continually talked of brotherhood, justice. decency and so on without ever giving specific meanings: they spoke for themselves. A minute's thought over the everyday corruptions of those terms will show that they do nothing of the kind. Freedom is another. Assumed to be self-explanatory, it is all things to all men: hope, delusion, inducement, trap. What became of "the Four Freedoms"? Freedom fighters, where are you now?

In fact, freedom by itself is an insignificant word. Its importance comes with its expansion — freedom from what, or to do which. Freedom from may be considerable: its range can cover merciful release from some private burden, to the abolition of a political restraint. Nevertheless, freedom in that sense remains negative and limited to shifting a particular evil. It is, of course, the most popular sense, and the argument is often made that to pile up these removals of restraint ("extending areas of freedom") must in the end lead to total and therefore positive social liberty.

The line drawn

However, the pursuit of the piecemeal does not work like that. The man who has obtained relief from a disability or restriction is simply released into the general slavery of his fellow-men. That is why rulers seldom mind, in the end, giving freedom from: liberation is a means of creating more slaves. The cracker-motto "freedoms" set out by Churchill and Roosevelt in the war were of this kind. Leaving aside that they were part of the sham currency of wartime promises and so unlikely to be taken seriously when the fever was over, it is worth observing that freedom from hunger and insecurity is had. more or less, by people in prison.

Nobody pretends that freedom from privation is worth having on such terms, but the terms accepted in ordinary life are often surprising. The usual paternalistic saying is that society can approve "liberty but not licence", and it is interesting that “licence" is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as excessive liberty". What is being said, therefore, is that you may have liberty but not too much. The line of excess is drawn, inevitably, by the ruling class: and the liberty thus prescribed is already restricted to the limits of freedom from. Thus, to suppose that slices of freedom can be gamed within capitalism and put together to make a free society is naive in the extreme.

Choice and responsibility

The context in which "freedom" takes on positive meaning is freedom to. Individually, innumerable extensions might be given: what they add up to socially is freedom to choose. This is the all—embracing denial made by the authoritarianism of a class-divided society. Under it, for the ruled, choice is directly refused or made impossible. One's station and way of life, loyalties, duties, means of expression are selected and hung on one. A free society is definable as such only in this way: in it. individual choice is sovereign.

All sovereignties have boundaries, however. The alternative point of view, the Stirnerite one which disfavours society itself for inhibiting the ego's absolute demands, is still practised by a number of anarchists whose cult it is never to answer letters or keep appointments as proof that they are free and spontaneous individuals not responsible to anyone. When the doctrine is stated like that, both its absurdity and its perniciousness are plainly visible: this is not freedom at all, because it depends on mutilating someone else's freedom. Freedom is relative always to the fact that we exist only as social creatures.

In simple everyday experience, every relationship or contract voluntarily made is a limitation on freedom. A person joining a political group or a recreational organization has "tied" him— or herself by the acceptance of obligations, including the recognition of rules and majority decisions.

The way to go

Freedom, then, means a state in which contracts are entered and obligations accepted, but by one's conscious choice not a predetermined one. The comparison to be made is between a free society and the authoritarian system where the obligations remain while somebody else imposes the choice. What must be recognized, however, is that the obligations are there in both cases. Indeed, freedom implies responsibility where servitude does not; having the choices imposed and the decisions made for one is tolerable to many people because it is easy. Part of the tyranny of capitalism is to make a virtue of that kind of mental laziness and extol bromides like "liberty not licence" to try and keep responsible thought in check.

Given comprehension of what freedom is, how is the free society obtained? The lack of freedom is not just a question of holding wrong outlooks. It derives from material conditions as much as from legal and moral restraint. The irony of the old saying that everyone is free to dine at the Savoy has innumerable applications. A poor or ill-educated person is not free to choose his work, or where he will live, or even whom he will mix with. Financial worries, insecurities, hostile circumstances of all kinds are obstructions to freedom.

But it does not follow that reforms of circumstances are the answer. That takes us back to the realm of freedom from, where capitalism's nature is to turn apparent gains into equivalent losses; at this, you can't win. The creation of a free society can be accomplished only by changing the structure of society. The disabilities and oppressions which are everywhere are aspects and consequences of the basic enslavement by capitalism, the class-ownership of the means of living. To replace them with freedom of choice and make responsibility instead of imposition the keystone of social life, common ownership is the prerequisite.

Freedom is the natural — and immediate — concomitant of the establishment of socialism. Nor is any abstract judicial freedom meant. The economic condition of socialism, production for use. means free access by everyone to the material wealth of society. That is emancipation. and from it arises the freedom to choose the sort of life one wants.

Debate: Is there common ground between socialists and anarchists? (1988)

Letters to the Editors from the February 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

  The article "Socialism versus anarchism" which we published in the Socialist Standard of October 1987 provoked an interesting response. The theme was, briefly, that the article did not deal thoroughly enough with its subject and that there is much common ground between anarchists and socialists on which both viewpoints can be profitably debated. We publish two letters, with our comments.  First, John Crump argues that to attack anarchism is to give credence to a mirage; the only thing all "anarchists" have in common is their opposition to the state.

Dear Editors,

In the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard, there appeared an article by LEW on "Socialism versus anarchism”. Might I make one or two comments?

First, on a purely factual level, can LEW kindly provide evidence for his statement that Kropotkin "supported the Bolshevik revolution until his death in 1921"?

Second, I would suggest that in attacking anarchism. LEW is giving credence to a mirage. Those who are popularly regarded as "anarchists" have only one characteristic in common opposition to the state. Mere opposition to the state does not constitute an "-ism", however, particularly when supposed "anarchists" can range from supporters of capitalist laissez-faire to advocates of a communist social organisation. This point can best be illustrated by considering "statism", as the opposite of "anarchism". Would it make sense to label indiscriminately all who see a role for the state as "statists"? Since such a category would range from defenders of capitalism, such as Margaret Thatcher, to advocates of communism, such as the SPGB. it would clearly have no more value than LEW’S catch-all rubric of "anarchism".

Third. LEW devoted the overwhelming majority of his article to Stirner. Proudhon and Bakunin. Yet the most important characteristic these three shared was not their "anarchism", but the fact that their ideas were compatible with capital accumulation and the wages system. Of course, it is a question of "socialism versus anarchism" when "anarchism" is represented by such a selection of pro-capitalist ideologues, but LEW then extends the argument (quite unjustifiably. in my view) as follows:

  Even with "anarcho-communists" like Kropotkin, the apparent similarities between his view of anarchist society and socialism should not blind us to the differences of approach.

What is "apparent" about these similarities? Kropotkin, like the SPGB, stood for a new society without money, wages, classes, or the state. Not only do such similarities seem a good deal more real than apparent, but in an article which makes frequent reference to Marx, would it not be appropriate to mention that on some questions which the SPGB regards as crucial, Kropotkin had a clearer understanding than Marx? For example, did not Kropotkin's criticism of Marx's ideas on labour vouchers in the “first phase of communist society" (see The Conquest of Bread, chapter 13) precede the SPGB's similar rejection of this method of distribution by several decades?

Finally, LEW argued that:

  . . . unless anarchists recognise the necessity for democratic revolutionary political action based on socialist understanding, they will never achieve a stateless society.

As far as achieving a stateless society is concerned, all we have to go on is the empirical evidence. The SPGB's parliamentary approach has brought it scant success after more than 80 years, and the anarcho-communists have equally little to show for their efforts after more than 100 years. My own view is that the question of how we achieve the new society will be settled by the millions of men and women who will be the architects of the new world. It is just as pointless to attempt to lay down a blueprint now for the means of achieving the new society as it is to formulate a blueprint for the precise workings of that society. Our task here and now is to play our part in winning people over from a capitalist way of looking at the world to a communist way. The SPGB has a role to play here — and so have the anarcho-communists. I know this from personal experience, since both these currents influenced me on my way to becoming a communist.

Yours for communism.

John Crump 

University of York

 Second, PC objects that our article failed to deal with the range of anarchist thought and that there is such similarity between the viewpoints of socialists and anarchists that we should be debating with each other rather than standing in opposition.

Dear Editors,

Your article in October's Standard entitled "Socialism versus anarchism" does little to dispel the misunderstandings that seem regularly to accompany a discussion on the subject of anarchist ideology. The writer of the article made little effort to deal with the vast range of anarchist thought on his chosen subjects, nor did he make reference to any developments in ideas that have taken place since 1876. when the last of his "victims" died; nor is he apologetic — indeed, his denial that his discussion is "not over dead men's bones" leads one eventually to conclude that it is precisely so, for the sake of his argument.

The three anarchists he deals with — Stirner. Proudhon and Bakunin — are all open to criticism and the author points this out with example and justification. However, while these three have had an undeniable influence on anarchist theory over the years, they certainly cannot be said to be necessarily representative of anarchists today.

Anarchists, like socialists, are imaginative people, and it requires little speculation that their beliefs and theories are as numerous as they. Books on anarchism by Miller, Guerin, Woodcock and Joll concede that their subject defies definition. As Miller says:

  Of all the major ideologies confronting the student of politics, anarchism must be the hardest to pin down. It resists straightforward definition. It is amorphous and full of paradoxes and contradictions.

Yet there is one main thread that runs through all anarchist thought — the love and pursuit of freedom. From it springs all the ideas that are most readily associated with anarchy: the abolition of authority and property; along with an unjustifiable reputation for violence born of the means by which a well-publicised minority have pursued their cause.

This century, however, has seen a number of anarchists developing theories as to the means of attaining freedom that have not been mentioned by your author.

For example, in contrast to Stirner's egoism, a line of anarchist thought stretching beyond Stirner's time has considered indispensable the need for social organisation and solidarity among all people. The train of debate includes Voline, who wrote: "Of course, say the anarchists, society must be organised. However, the new organisation . . . must be established freely, socially and, most of all, from below". And Malatesta, who said:

  Social solidarity is a fact . . . it can be freely and consciously accepted and in consequence benefit all concerned, or it can be accepted willy-nilly, consciously or otherwise, in which case it manifests itself by the subjection of one to another, by the exploitation of some by others.

The author's remarks on Proudhon's weak reformism of property is justifiable. But are Proudhon's ideas on the subject representative of anarchist thought? Again the number of anarchists who utterly oppose all property and its attendant wage-labour is far more significant. The anarchist school that springs from Kropotkin's "libertarianism", which includes Malatesta and Elisee Reclus, have long been arguing the horrors of capitalism. Kropotkin himself said: "When we observe the basic features of human societies . . . we find that the political regime to which they are subject is always the expression of the economic regime which stands at the heart of society". Malatesta's conclusion from this observation is that:

  The basic function of government everywhere in all times, whatever title it adopts and whatever its origin and organisation may be, is always that of oppressing and exploiting the masses, of defending the oppressors and the exploiters: and its principal, characteristic and indispensable, instruments are the police agent and the tax-collector, the soldier and the gaoler — to whom must be invariably added the trader in lies, be he priest or schoolmaster, remunerated or protected by the government to enslave minds and make them docilely accept the yoke.

This cannot be said to be a "dislike of certain aspects of capitalism" which “lacks rigour" as your author suggests. Besides, as Miller points out: "Much anarcho-communist writing (such as the above) starts with an attack on capitalist society not readily distinguishable from that found in Marxist literature. A vivid assault is launched upon the exploitative relationship between capitalist and worker, resulting in poverty, drudgery and the constant threat of unemployment for the latter, and idle luxury for the former".

The debate on revolutionary action — democratic or otherwise — which is the instrument by which the author dismisses Bakunin, is still to run its course for anarchists and socialists alike. But rather than tie up the argument neatly and somewhat divisively as your author does, so perpetuating unnecessarily an enmity embodied in his title "Socialism versus anarchism" would it not be more rewarding to acknowledge the rich debate that both ideologies are able to present? For. in spite of your author's sentiments. anarchists and socialists are not as divided as he would make out, and certainly not so irreconcilable that debate and the exchange of ideas is impossible. Have both sides made their final statements on all matters? The frustrations of inflexible dogma were expressed vividly by Bakunin when he said of Marx:

  As soon as an official truth is pronounced — having been scientifically discovered by this great brainy head labouring all alone — a truth proclaimed and imposed on the whole world from the summit of the Marxist Sinai, why discuss anything?

Is it not more constructive to build on those ideas that both ideologies have in common? Malatesta was convinced that "anarchy. as understood by the anarchists and as only they can interpret it, is based on socialism", while Adolph Fischer claimed that "every anarchist is a socialist, but every socialist is [not] necessarily an anarchist".

So long as both sides are dismissive of the other, misunderstanding and mistrust can be the only outcome. It is not enough to have parallel sentiments: they never seem to meet. Surely there is still both the time and the need for informative and educative debate, not just between these two groups, but with all people of all political and social persuasions?

PC

Our comments are as follows:
The debate between socialists and anarchists has tended to be a rather sterile one. based far too often on a re-enactment of conflicts originating in the First International. The anarchists have quite mistakenly abused socialists-Marxists as being statists. This is nonsense. Marx was the first and most coherent political thinker to elaborate a theory which advocated a stateless society.

The Socialist Party stands in this tradition of seeking the abolition of all states, including government, the armed forces, national frontiers, prisons and all the other obscene features of an authoritarian, property-based society. We have never ceased to explain that those leftists who pose as socialists and then seek to establish state capitalism are enemies of all that socialists stand for. Anarchism is also a term which has historically been used in many ways. It has described the foolish antics of bomb-throwing and riot-supporting advocates of mindless rebellion against the state and so too has it described those individualists who have sought to take on the power of society by abstractly wishing themselves away from society.

In fact, these two types of anarchist outlook are far more representative of those who have called themselves anarchists than our correspondents might concede. Even today most of those who might describe themselves as anarchists have little more than a vague notion of fighting the establishment (whatever that may be) and smashing the state (however that might be done) and creating a free society (whatever freedom might mean). The same is true about many who call themselves socialists: there is no copyright on the term and it is used by all sorts of people in all sorts of confused ways. The difference between The Socialist Party and our correspondents is that we contend that socialism can only logically and scientifically mean one thing, whereas their concept of anarchism is so vague as to be meaningless.

For example. PC tells us that anarchism is a term which "defies definition". Terms like "ghost" and "heaven" and “soul" tend to be of the same nature and therefore it is hardly surprising that they are not treated with great seriousness by scientific thinkers. John Crump states that what is popularly called anarchism is a "mirage" and that the only characteristic uniting anarchists is "opposition to the state". Even that vague definition is misleading: some Russian anarchists gave full support to the Bolshevik seizure of state power in 1917 and played an active part in smashing the democratic Constituent Assembly in 1918 when the Bolsheviks lost the election. In Spain in the 1930s anarchists actually took part in the running of government. Let those who seek to defend anarchism tell us precisely what it is that they are defending and let them also tell us which "anarchists" have no right to call themselves anarchists. That is what The Socialist Party is required to do in relation to the term "socialism" and anarchists will be treated with little credibility unless they treat ideas with the same rigour and honesty.

Many anarchists have argued, and still do argue, in favour of a classless, propertyless, moneyless world society. Kropotkin is an example of a thinker in the anarchist tradition who held many ideas which socialists could agree with. His pamphlet, The Wages System, provided an acceptable refutation of the ideas being put by those who attempted to turn into a sacred dogma Marx's mistaken ideas about the existence of exchange by labour vouchers in a socialist society. Kropotkin's Mutual Aid is a fine work in the battle against those who insist that "human nature" is a barrier to socialism. But let us have no illusions about Kropotkin. He supported the slaughter of workers when war broke out in 1914; in 1917 he supported the revolution in Russia and, whilst not a supporter of Bolshevism until he died, was still able to commend the Bolsheviks for introducing greater equality in Russia — in his letter to Lenin as late as 1920. In the light of this, how much credence should we attach to PC's quotation of the assertion that "every anarchist is a socialist"?

John Crump is closer to the truth when he says that "opposition to the state" is what defines an anarchist. This included the so-called anarcho-capitalists of the Libertarian Alliance which is currently enjoying some popularity as a novelty act on the youth wing of the Conservative Party. The anarcho-capitalists argue that the state should be abolished so that capitalism can be run without any political interference: let market forces struggle in unrestrained freedom. What comes out of this extreme example is that it is not enough to simply oppose the state. To attack the state, and to demand that authority ceases to be used in society, without attacking the basis of the state or its authority is an example of the philosophical idealism which differentiates anarchists from historical materialists —from socialists. The idealist asserts that "authority is bad" and "co-operation would be a good idea". The materialist is not opposed to authority but to the state machine which is a coercive instrument of the authority of class over class. Materialists do not advocate co-operation as "a fine idea", but as the historically necessary next stage beyond class antagonism. Materialists do not oppose all authority but call for democratic control, the only form of authority which can be acceptable to the majority. So, even though some anarchists agree with socialists that we need to live in a stateless society, our reasoning is crucially different.

The anarchist seeks to abolish state power from which comes all social inequality, whereas the socialist seeks to abolish the existing material conditions (capitalism) which makes state power necessary. PC's comment that a "main thread that runs through all anarchist thought" is "the abolition of authority” exemplifies this simplistic idealism. In a book review written by Marx and Engels in 1850 they dismiss the idealistic notion of abolishing state power without dealing with the material basis of such power:

  For Communists, abolition of the state makes sense only as the necessary result of the abolition of classes, with whose disappearance the need for the organised power of one class for the purpose of holding down the other classes, will automatically disappear. (Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 1850)

Without democratic authority (socialists prefer to speak of "democratic control") no social organisation would exist. Now some anarchists — the individualists like Stimer who deride social organisation — can quite consistently support this opposition to the principle of authority. Why should these individualists care whether society organises itself or not? But anarchists who claim to favour the co-operative organisation of the world community are indulging in mere sloganising when they call for "the abolition of authority".

Anarchists have traditionally opposed the need for political action in order to transform society. Socialists contend that the only way society will be materially transformed is for there to be a majority of workers who understand and want socialism. These workers must take away power from the capitalist minority. Just as workers give social power to the master class through the ballot box, so the ballot box can be used to show that a majority rejects capitalism and those who seek to run it. The ballot box will only be one part of the revolutionary process, the far greater part being the development of majority class consciousness and the building of an active movement by the revolutionary class. Unless political power is taken from the minority it will be used against the majority.

Of course, the precise details of the revolutionary change will differ from country to country depending on the political conditions (where legal ballots do not exist or cannot be trusted the workers must create our own) and it will also differ in accordance with different creative ideas about what needs to be done before the establishment of socialism which will emerge as the socialist movement grows. In this sense John Crump is quite right to say that "the millions of men and women who will be the architects of the new world" will decide the exact means by which the revolution is to occur. But. as we pointed out in the article in October 1987 Socialist Standard, the revolutionary process cannot avoid democratic political action and still produce socialism. Without democratic action there will be no democratic society: without political action the state will be used to crush a non-political "socialist" movement. Again. PC tells us that the debate as to whether revolutionary action is to be democratic or otherwise is still to run its course for both anarchists and socialists. This is untrue. Socialists can conceive of no way in which a socialist system of society will be established except by democratic means.

We agree with PC, that it is worthwhile for anarchists and socialists to engage in "informative and educative debate". We should build on whatever ideas we have in common. It is pointless for workers who share a vision of a stateless society based on the uncompromised principles of socialism to be endlessly squabbling over the texts of the nineteenth century. If the ranks of the revolutionary movement can be swelled on the basis of principled unity it would be wrong for anyone to delay the process. Unfortunately, anarchists tend to be rather elusive characters and on those few occasions when we do encounter active anarchists they are reluctant to engage in open debate. When the few debates between The Socialist Party and anarchists have taken place such as those against Albert Meltzer, who told us in our last debate with him in Islington that anarchists must be involved in the struggle to reform capitalism because "that's where the workers are" — most anarchists in the audience disowned the speaker. Which is all very confusing when one considers the claim that anarchism is so revolutionary that it cannot even be defined.

Socialism versus anarchism (1987)

From the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party is opposed to anarchism. Why? At a superficial level, we seem to have something in common: we both want a stateless society. However, it is precisely on this point that socialism and anarchism differ and more besides. One way of bringing out these differences is to contrast the arguments of Karl Marx and his three main anarchist opponents: the individualist anarchism of Max Stirner, the mutualist anarchism of P. J. Proudhon and the collectivist anarchism of Michael Bakunin. This is not, however, an argument over dead men's bones. Marx's criticisms of anarchism in the nineteenth century are still broadly acceptable today.

Like Marx we accept the conceptual distinction between the state and society. Human existence is necessarily social existence but the state, as the social institutions and relationships of coercion, is not a necessary feature of human life. The state, in fact, is the outcome of a historically specific form of society: private property society. Capitalism is the latest phase of private property society in which the state serves the interests of the dominant social class. Socialists contend that capitalism does not function in workers' interests and that in order to revolutionise society in their interests it is important that a majority of class conscious workers gain control of the state. Democratic socialist control of the state prior to its abolition enables workers to reorganise society in their interests: a classless, moneyless, stateless society based on common ownership. But in so far as anarchists can agree about anything, they all deny that workers should or can gain control of the state.

Stirner

Whereas socialists see the source of oppression and exploitation in the social relationships of capitalism (which includes the state), anarchists tend to see it in authority in general and the state in particular. Max Stirner opposed all authority on egotistical grounds. But he took this line of argument to its logical conclusion. In his claims for absolute egoism he rejects not only the state but society itself. This nihilistic attitude was clearly expressed in his main work, The Ego and His Own (1844):

  I, the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this "human society". I sacrifice nothing to it. I only utilise it: but to be able to utilise it completely 1 must transform it rather into my property and my creature - i.e., I must annihilate it and form in its place the Union of Egoists.

Most of The German Ideology (1845). by Marx and Engels, is a reply to Stirner's ideas. They ridiculed Stirner's ''rebellious'' egoism and argued for a socialist revolution in which the individual and his class are liberated. Socialism will be a set of social relationships in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all; it is not an attempt to subjugate the individual to some monstrous collectivity, as Marxism is so often portrayed in anarchist caricatures. As for Stirner, his ideas would be impossible to put into practice. The required "Union” undermines his egoist viewpoint. The cooperative nature of the modern productive process is inescapable. But this doesn't stop so-called "libertarians'' today making private property a virtue in the manner of Stirner, though they would rather not spell out his conclusions. By claiming that private property and the pursuit of selfishness are the proper goals of human life they well illustrate the alienating effects of capitalism. For private property is a ''right" against society; it is, in a very real sense, anti-social and anti-human.

Proudhon

The term "anarchism" was first introduced by P. J. Proudhon in his book What is Property? (1840), in which he gave the famous reply, "Property is theft". However, he didn’t mean this phrase to be taken literally; he was in fact in favour of private ownership. Proudhon made a distinction between "property" and "possession”. He rejected property: the capitalist right to draw rent, interest and profit through owning something. He favoured possession: individuals could use land and tools on condition that they didn't live on unearned income. In Proudhon's conception of an anarchist society individuals would have an equal right to possess, based on a "mutualist" system of equivalent exchange between self-governing producers and financed by free credit. Marxian socialism, therefore, is rejected on the grounds that it would violate the right to possess by establishing common ownership.

Marx's initial reaction to Proudhon's work was favourable, calling it a "great scientific advance", making possible for the first time "a real science of political economy" (The Holy Family, 1845). Proudhon's main insight was to subject private property relationships to critical scrutiny. Nevertheless, his analysis was still inadequate; Marx wrote:

  Proudhon does not consider the further creations of private property, e.g.. wages, trade, value, price, money, etc. as forms of private property in themselves . . .

Proudhon had claimed that these forms of private property were an inevitable feature of human society and this was one of the criticisms Marx made in his own contribution to political economy in The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). Despite Proudhons insights and his interest in political economy he had failed to understand the workings of capitalism. His scheme for free credit, for example, was a complete non-starter; as Marx said:

 . . . wanting to preserve wage-labour and thus the basis of capital, as Proudhon does, and at the same time to eliminate the "drawbacks" by abolishing a secondary form of capital, reveals the novice. (Theories of Surplus Value, vol. 3).

Proudhon believed his anarchist proposals were anti-capitalist but in reality he only disliked some aspects of capitalism, the state in particular. The contradictory nature of his ideas meant that later anarcho-syndicalists. fascists and advocates of laissez-faire could all claim to derive their ideas from his. And this indicates both a strength and weakness of much anarchist thinking; the strength being its apparent anti-dogmatism and "flexibility" of thought; its weakness being a lack of rigour. A practical socialist society must be preceded by a practical socialist theory. Lacking a plausible explanation of how capitalism functions and what's wrong with it. how can anarchists propose a non-capitalist alternative?

Bakunin

Bakunin opposed authority, not from an individualist point of view, but from that of a peasant and a member of the working class. He thought that a spontaneous uprising would sweep away capitalism and the state; his belief in the "cleansing" benefits of violence was mystical:

  Let us then put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternally creative source of all life. The lust of destruction is also a creative lust. (The Reaction in Germany, 1842).

Revolutionary violence, it is claimed, would create a new society organised on federal lines and based on an individual's income being equal to their work. Bakunin's romantic adventurism brought him into conflict with Marx in the First International (The International Working Men's Association). It ended with Bakunin being expelled in 1872. One consequence of this was that, to this day, anarchist criticism of Marxism centres on the alleged authoritarianism Marx displayed in the dispute. But the dispute was much more than a clash of personalities; in reality there were important differences of perspective on the state and society. In the first place. Bakunin shared Proudhon's distaste for all forms of political action; Marx's insistence on the need for a socialist party to gain political power was anathema. Secondly. Bakunin believed that the state must be destroyed by conspiratorial violence; Marx's proposed "dictatorship of the proletariat" was rejected on the grounds that it would result in a new form of tyranny.

Since Marx's day, however, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" has taken on a meaning which he never intended and anarchists have seized on this as proof of the authoritarian nature of Marxian socialism. But this is due to Lenin's distortion of the concept in the aftermath of the Russian revolution. If Lenin's dictatorship over the proletariat has resulted in a new form of tyranny (and it has), this is hardly surprising and doesn't show Marxism to be at fault. For Marx the "dictatorship of the proletariat " didn't mean rule by a vanguard party; it did mean democratic control of the state by a politically organised working class. He put forward this concept in the circumstances prevailing in the nineteenth century which in certain respects no longer apply. In his Conspectus of Bakunin's "Statism and Anarchy" (1874). Marx noted that, so long as a class of capitalists exists, the working class must make use of the state — "the general means of coercion" — to dispossess them of the means of production. This would be the only effective way of changing society because it minimises any violence. With a socialist working class in control of the states through their use of their socialist parties, international capitalism can be replaced by world socialism. It is of course a great irony that anarchists should condemn this proposed course of action as potentially authoritarian, given their recipe for bloody civil war by ignoring the state or waging violence against it. In this respect they are closer to the Leninists than they might realise.

Socialism not anarchism

While Bakunin did want to do away with capitalism and the state it would be incorrect to say that he and Marx agreed about the ends but differed over the means. In fact they disagreed on both the means and ends and many anarchists today would take Bakunin's view. Even with "anarcho-communists" like Kropotkin the apparent similarities between his view of anarchist society and socialism should not blind us to the differences of approach. (He supported the Bolshevik revolution until his death in 1921). For unless anarchists recognise the necessity for democratic revolutionary political action based on socialist understanding, they will never achieve a stateless society.

Lew Higgins

Why Socialists Oppose Anarchism. Its Fallacies and Dangers Exposed. (1911)

From the August 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Difference is Fundamental
The evils of modern society stand out for all men to see, but the remedy is far less obvious. To arrive at the conclusion that Socialism is the real remedy involves patient study and investigation of the affairs of modern life.

Unfortunately, there are some workers who shun the duty of thinking out these “problems,” and they, therefore, fall a prey to the plausible plea of the Anarchist, who misrepresents, besides misunderstanding, the views of the Socialist.

The idea widely prevails that the difference between Socialism and Anarchism is simply one of methods—the end in view being the same. Far is this from being the case, however. The whole philosophy of the Socialist is at variance with the Anarchist position. A brief survey of the history of the Anarchist theory will make that clear.

The pioneer of Anarchism was Max Stirner, who, in “The Individual .and his Property” (published in 1845), expounded the “philosophy” that lies at the root of all Anarchist teaching. The only “reality” that he recognised was that of the individual. In his own words:

  “Away with everything that is not wholly and solely thy own affair. You think that my own concerns must at least be good ones? A fig for good and evil! I am I, and I am neither good nor evil. Neither has any meaning for me. The godly is the affair of God, the human that of humanity. My concern is neither the Good, the Right, the Free, etc., but simply my own self, and it is not general, it is individual as I myself am individual.”

Stirner’s views may well be summed up as Idealism run mad. For him there was no such process as evolution in society and the majority of the institutions of social life were but phantoms. He starts with a pure abstraction, the individual, but this afterwards stands unmasked as an individual of the bourgeoisie!

Very Much Like Capitalism.
It is in opposing Communism that Stirner — as is inevitable with the logical Anarchist — shows the bourgeois nature of his ideal.

   “Communists think that the Commune should be property owner. On the contrary I am a property owner and can only agree with others as to my property. I am the owner of property but property is not sacred. Should I only be the holder of property? No, hitherto one was only the holder of property, assured of possession of a piece of land, but now everything belongs to me. I am the owner of everything I need and can get hold of. If the Socialist says society gives me what I need the Egoist says I take what I want. If the Communists behave like beggars the Egoist behaves like an owner of property.”

Stirner only objected to the State of his day because it interfered with his freedom as owner of commodities. Individual “rights” and desires were alone to be regarded, and to maintain them he advocated the formation of “Leagues of Egoists.” Shades of Individualism !

Stirner was followed by Proudhon, who took the same Utopian point of view. The whole mechanism of our social life is not the growth of more and more complex relations between man and man—developed through the connection established by industrial operations — but is born of men’s ideas! “The political constitution was conceived and gradually completed in the interest of order for want of a social constitution, the rules and principles of which could only be discovered as a result of long experience, and are even to-day the subject of Socialist controversy.” (“Confessions of a Revolutionist." ) ,

Hence we see that epochs in human history are not viewed as necessary stages in the upward march of men from the time when, faced with only the elemental forces of nature, they slowly but steadily became masters of implements and powers, and by their influence arose the differing and progressing forms of social life. No, the Anarchist says that right down the ages men have been seeking.the perfect society ; but it is only discovered in all its charm and beauty, now — by the Anarchists!

The Utopian Spirit of Anarchism.
Stirner and Proudhon have been dealt with to show the Utopian nature of Anarchism in all its majesty. Go right through the Anarchist writings, from Stirner to Bakunine and Kropotkin and notice the same spirit through it all. Like all Utopians, they start out with an abstract principle, and endeavour to apply it so as to form a perfect society.

Proudhon plainly showed in his “Philosophy of Misery,” the petty bourgeois nature of his “system.” Individual ownership and control of the instruments of industry, with State regulation of prices so as to avoid industrial crises !

This great Anarchist even denounced Trades Unionism as as outrage against “the liberty of the individual.” This is the man whom Kropotkin acclaims as “the founder of Anarchism.”

Proudhon’s theories underwent but slight change at the hands of his successor. Michael Bakunine, “the Apostle of Universal Destruction.” Although claiming to believe in the common ownership of the means of life, his views demonstrated that Individual Anarchism is the only logical alternative to the opponent of Socialism.

At a Congress in Berne in 1869 Bakunine pleaded for ‘'the economical and social equalisation of classes and individuals.” This is the same as Proudhon's theory of the unity of Capital and Labour. Continuing, Bakunine said "I detest Communism because it is the negation of Liberty.” The mental kinship of Bakunine with his Utopian predecessors is well established by his idealistic views. “I desire the radical extirpation of the principle of the authority and tutelage of the State, which has until now enslaved, exploited, oppressed and depraved men. I desire the abolition of property, individually hereditary, which is nothing hut a result of the principle of the State.”

Anarchism Ignores Evolution.
The private ownership of the means of life has its roots, then, in the principle of the State!

Bakunine’s influence is very marked on his follower, the leading living Anarchist, Prince Kropotkin. Like the whole school of Anarchists, be ignores the trend of social evolution and invents a “perfect society” of the future. In the “Conquest of Bread” he says “It is of an Anarchist Communist society that we are about to speak, a society that will recognise the absolute liberty of the individual." (Chap. XII.) In his address to the Jura Federation he said : “This ideal is not the product of the dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas.” This metaphysical vein permeates all Anarchist teaching. Jean Grave, the prominent French Anarchist, in his “Moribund Society and Anarchy," tells us that the conceptions of Anarchists "are in harmony with the physiological and psychological nature of man and in harmony with the observance of natural laws, while our actual organisation has been established in contradiction of all good logic and all good sense.”

The Socialist is a materialist, the Anarchist an idealist. The Socialist recognises social development as a consequence of the evolution of economic forces. The Anarchist view is well stated by Kropotkin in ‘Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal," as follows: “ The fact is that each phase of development of a society is a resultant of all the activities of the intellects which compose that society; it bears the imprint of all those millions of wills."

The Socialist Position
With the materialist conception of history as his guide, the Socialist correctly grasps the relation which prevailing institutions hear to the slavery of the working class. But turn to the bewilderingly vague writings of the Anarchists and you will find them filled with the most vain tirades against the State and every form of authority. “The State," “Authority," and “Law" are held to be the real cause of the workers’ sufferings, and the immediate abolition of the State is said to be "the only way."

Against this the Socialist places the scientific position. The State is not born of a despot's ideas —conceived and built up to do his bidding. Frederick Engels. in his brilliant work “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State," shows that the State as we know it, is but the final form of an institution which fulfilled a useful service in the social economy of the past. It arose as a part of the division of labour in early societies, and carried on the administration of public affairs. The advent of private property in the means of producing wealth gradually influenced the form of the State till it became the instrument of the ruling class.

The State has been the State of the chattel-slave owner, the State of the feudal nobility, and now it is the State of the industrial capitalist. It exists to day because there is a class to be kept in subjection. When the present subject class become organised and seize political power, their supremacy will have sounded the death-knell of the State. The working class being the last class to achieve its freedom, its emancipation will end class distinctions: neither a dominant nor a subject class can exist when the ownership of the means of life is vested in the community.

Anarchists are fond of accusing Socialists of wanting to increase the power of the State. Marx and Engels are denounced by Kropotkin (“Conquest of Bread’’ and elsewhere) for this reason. Yet every student of these Socialist pioneers knows that they pointed out that when the toilers triumph the day of the State will be gone for ever. The Anarchist lament about tyranny under Socialism will be seen to be without foundation. Tyranny presupposes power, but when the instruments of production are commonly owned, power to oppress can no longer exist. Further, when wealth is no longer privately owned there is no incentive to tyrannise. There are no clashing interests —the mainspring of tyranny.

All Anarchist conceptions are vitiated by their misunderstanding of the nature of society. W C. Owen, in the pamphlet “Anarchy versus Socialism,’’ says: “Anarchy concentrates its attention on the individual, considering that only when absolute justice is done to him or her will it be possible to have a healthy and happy society. For society is merely the ordinary individual multiplied indefinitely." The Socialist, on the contrary, holds to the view accepted universally in scientific circles to-day, viz., that society is something more than a number of individuals—society is an organism. Even the great anti-Socialist, Herbert Spencer, proved conclusively the organic nature of society.

As the result of their erroneous view, the Anarchists are wholly concerned with the individual. “Absolute liberty of the individual” is their cry. Ever busy discussing the “rights” of the individual and the tyranny of other than individual control of affairs, they lose sight of the importance of the economic necessities of society itself.

Consider the possibilities and needs of modern life. A great population covers the globe. These people need “food, clothing, and shelter” and a hundred and one other things that centuries of economic advance have accustomed them to and made part of their standard needs. How are these things to be supplied ? What are the means at our disposal ? To provide the things required the great machinery, etc., has to be used in accordance with the best and most productive methods. Association of the wealth producers is an imperative necessity of the future. This involves the organisation of industry, the division of labour, and the arrangement of processes in proper sequence. The distribution of wealth has to be organised, too, otherwise chaos and starvation ensue.

This is where Anarchism plainly fails, for it repudiates the very mainspring of organisation. It proclaims each individual a law unto himself. It stands for the universal play of “free agreement.” Apply that to industrial life and see how it would work out.

If the production and distribution of social necessaries were to wait on the “free agreement” of all the industrial population to certain methods being pursued; if industry were to depend upon the whim and caprice of the members of society, then Nemesis would await us. The running of a railroad, the sailing of a ship, the building of a bridge, all these involve centralised control and speedy action.

The Socialist does not advocate Socialism as “the perfect system.” He seeks but to adapt institutions and customs to the changes in the mode of producing wealth. He claims that, subject to evolution, therefore, imperfect though it be, it is the best system possible in the circumstances that face us.

The common ownership of wealth is decreed as the only alternative to private ownership, and the method of production conditions the method of control. Democratic control is the complement of communal ownership. The Anarchist hates democracy, while the Socialist takes it for his constant guide. The Anarchist rejects the view that the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the masses, and believes that the action of an “intelligent minority” suffices. The rest will be carried along. Autocracy is the logical outcome of his method, and reaction the inevitable aftermath. Majority decisions are anathema to the Anarchist.  He asserts that “the majority have ever erred.” Let us again quote Owen’s pamphlet.

  “If the workers were to come into possession of the means of production tomorrow, the administration, under the most perfect system of universal suffrage—which we attained in this country years ago, and have been vainly trying to doctor into decent shape for generations past —would simply result in the creation of a special class of political managers, professing to act for the welfare of the majority. Were they as honest as the day, which it is folly to expect, they could only carry out the dictates of the majority, and those who did not agree to those dictates would find themselves outcasts.”

How do the Anarchists propose to administer affairs? How are means of production to be controlled? Kropotkin, in “Anarchist Communism, its Basis and Principles," says they "must be managed in common by the producers of wealth.” Though freely denouncing democratic methods the Anarchists never face facts and state how the socially owned means of production are to be “commonly controlled” except through democratic channels (i.e., “under the most perfect system of universal suffrage”). Individualist-Anarchism offers the only retreat for the “Anarchist-Communist,” and this involves the individual ownership and control of wealth producing instruments. In other words, the evolution of industry and the immense amount of wealth now required for our use must be ignored, and we are to return to handicraft and petty enterprise!

Democracy, to the Socialist, does not only mean the counting of heads. It implies opening all the means of knowledge to the entire population; giving access to every source of information and advancement to all — thus ensuring, as far as is humanly possible, that the vote is the deliberate expression of the will of equals. And if all do not agree, then ample justification exists for acting on the decision of the majority in matters of social importance. There is no other way. The minority are ever free to try to change the opinions of the majority, but they must loyally abide by the supreme views in the meantime. Without this all organisation is impossible, whether its ramifications extend to society or are extremely limited.

Though the Anarchists condemn democratic procedure, by stating that nobody can represent us but ourselves, they have to destroy their own theory when they begin to act. Of course, such times are very infrequent, but one such occurred at the last Anarchist congress (Amsterdam, Aug. 1907). There representatives of various bodies in different countries attended, and besides voting, they constituted an International Bureau "composed of five delegates." (“Freedom” report.)

That is the Anarchist tribute to the soundness of Socialist criticism. It must be obvious that great populations cannot come together and discuss and arrange all matters in detail, but must delegate their authority to representatives. 'Though the “Referendum” and “Initiative” are serviceable methods, they must be supplemented by delegation when occasion demands. Even the first two methods turn on majority rule in the last analysis.

In economics the Anarchist rivals the Anti-Socialist in misrepresentation of the Socialist position. Kropotkin attacks Marx (in “The Wage System") for advocating the use of labour notes as a method of paying wages under Socialism, in spite of Marx’s repudiation of them in his "Critique of Political Economy" and the “Poverty of Philosophy.”

Marx and Engels analysed capitalist society and laid bare the process of exploiting the working class. In his three great volumes on the Production and Circulation of Capital, Marx demonstrates the true nature of Value, Price, end Profit, and buttresses his own theories by quotations from the classic writers of the nineteenth century. Yet the Anarchist “economists” continually accuse him of accepting the views of Smith, Ricardo, and others, without independent inquiry!

“It was from Malthus’ supposed law of population that Ricardo deduced his famous theory of rent which Henry George has made familiar to everybody, and on which Marx founded hie ‘Scientific Socialism ’ ” !

Thus the Anarchist pamphlet “Anarchy and Malthus,” by C. L. James, published recently. In it we are also told that “the difference between Anarchism and Socialism as we usually understand the later term is the difference between Malthus and Ricardo."

The whole pamphlet is typical of Anarchist confusion. Malthus’ moonshine is supported, and no praise seems sufficient for the priestly defender of the must inhuman methods capitalism used in its prime. Malthus is commended “with those who abolished slavery, repealed the Corn Laws, put an end to imprisonment for debt,” and “ established the policy of peace.” Apart from this highly imaginative “history,” the Anarchist forgets to remark that Malthus was mainly occupied with such things as opposing Poor law relief “because it fostered the perpetuation of the unfit.”

Kropotkin’s “criticism” of the Marxian Surplus-Value theory is remarkable. He says (“Conquest of Bread"): "The evil of the present organisation is not that the ‘surplus-value' of production passes over to the capitalist—as Robertus and Marx had contended. Surplus value itself is only a consequence of more profound causes. The evil is that there can be any kind of ‘surplus value,' instead of a surplus not consumed by each generation.”

Kropotkin and his followers also attack Marx for his scientific theory that control over capital concentrates into proportionately fewer hands along with its expansion. This is so plainly seen to-day that it is superfluous to deal with the Anarchists denial.

In the foregoing the unscientific and visionary character of Anarchist “philosophy” is established beyond cavil. Anarchism attracts to its ranks a motley gathering. Its lack of cohesion, its individualism and its Utopianism, have enabled it to embrace the most ill assorted set of votaries that ever nestled under one banner. From the proud Prince Kropotkin to the official John Turner, it includes suppliers of every movement but ours. From Malthusians to anti morganatic marriage apostles, advocates of eight-hour and other piece-meal reforms, supporters of the Liberal Government like Morrison Davidson, and of the Labour Party like Edward Carpenter—these are the revolutionary Anarchists!

The Anarchist ranks have steadily dwindled in Britain, and their members apathetically drop away. Its Press makes a sporadic appearance. Accusations of being police spies lead to continual recrimination and permanent distrust among the “comrades." Hence Anarchism’s decline, and its inability to organise the working class.

But still the danger exists that those workers who have been sickened by the compromise, confusion, and betrayal of the Labour and pseudo-Socialist parties may succumb to the plea that because the fake political parties have failed to help them and advance their cause, Socialism is useless and Anarchism the only hope. Those who follow in the Anarchists’ footsteps and ramble in the Utopian wilderness, but delay the time when they must inevitably come to see that the Socialist Party of Great Britain alone is sound, for its aims are revolutionary, its methods scientific, and its working democratic.

Loyalty to its principles and devotion to its aims will do far more to hasten the workers’ emancipation than the will-’o-the-wisp notions of Anarchists and the dangerous policy they pursue. But the latter must be dealt with in the next issue.

Adolph Kohn

(To be Concluded.)

Anarchism and Socialism (1979)

From the April 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Plekhanov’s book Anarchism and Socialism is a treasure. Not only did he clearly state the case against the anarchists of his day but he also analysed utopian socialism. For Plekhanov, Anarchism was a decadent form of utopianism. For Eleanor Marx Aveling, who translated his book in 1895, "under any circumstances Anarchism is but another word for reaction; and the more honest the men and women who play this reactionist game, the more tragic and dangerous it becomes for the whole working class movement".

The book's central point, made equally effectively in the translator’s preface and the introduction by Robert Rives La Monte, to the 1907 Kerr edition, is the importance of political action. Both Eleanor Marx and La Monte point to the failure of the Socialist League as evidence that "every revolt from the Socialist Party in America, which is based on disgust with the fact that it is a ‘pure and simple’ political party of ‘ballot-worshippers’ is destined to repeat the history of the Socialist League” (La Monte).

Plekhanov begins, however, not with the Anarchists at all but with an analysis of utopian socialism:-

The Utopian is one who, starting from an abstract principle, seeks for a perfect social organisation.

The abstract principle on which utopian socialists like Morelly, Fourier. Owen and Saint Simon based their arguments was "human nature.” But scientific socialism showed that this was not constant: “while man, in order to maintain his existence, acts upon nature outside himself, he alters his own naure”. Since Marx, wrote Plekhanov, the revolutionary socialist movement was no longer founded on an abstract principle or an ideal of a "perfect legislation” in total conformity with human nature, but on “a scientifically demonstrable economic necessity”. The struggle between workers and the capitalist class, he declared, must become a political one:-

Every class war is a political one. In order to do away with feudal society the bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power. In order to do away with capitalist society the proletariat must do the same. Its political task is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events themselves, and not by any abstract consideration.

Rooted in the class struggle and the interests of the working class, Plekhanov lashed into the Anarchists, dealing in some depth with their naive, crazy notions. There was Max Stirner: "for me there is nothing above myself”. Stirner’s League of Egoists, wrote Plekhanov, was "the Utopia of a petty bourgeois in revolt". Some of Stirner’s ideas still surface from time to time in eccentric Tory circles and leagues of small shopkeepers, imbued with the same spirit of "bourgeois individualism".

Proudhon's ideas on the social constitution and on ending capitalism without political action or class struggle are debunked by Plekhanov, who points out with irony the many blatant contradictions in Proudhon's theories.

Bakunin is dealt with next. "I detest Communism, because it is the negation of liberty, and I cannot conceive anything human without liberty”, he declared, thus revealing his basic utopianism. "I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and causes all the forces of society to be absorbed by the State, because it necessarily ends in the centralisation of property in the hands of the State".

Bakunin also expressed clearly the characteristic mistake of Anarchist thinking, that is, the idea that the State should be smashed since its oppression is the cause of exploitation. In this belief can be seen the Utopian’s ignorance of hard economic facts, of the historical process and of the role of the State, as necessary to class-based economic systems. As capitalism has become an intolerable fetter on the productive forces, the working class must abolish it. The State will not be abolished: it will wither away, like an uprooted weed. Rut as long as class ownership of wealth exists, smashing the State is futile—a new form of State will always arise, as weeds do when their roots are left in the soil.

The Anarchists are mistaken in believing the abolition of the State would achieve emancipation. The events of 1917, when Lenin, destroying the old State with his programme "All power to the Soviets", only succeeded in creating a new form of State, and new methods of exploitation, are evidence of the futility of such tactics. Capitalism can only be ended by the working class taking political action, not to smash the State, but to abolish the wages system.

Bakunin distinguished between social revolution and political revolution. Plekhanov answered, in memorable terms:-

Every class struggle being necessarily a political struggle, it is evident that every political revolution, worthy of the name, is a social revolution; it is evident also that for the proletariat the political struggle is as much a necessity as it has always been for every class struggling to emancipate itself.

Adrift from political action. Bakunin and his followers encouraged terrorist tactics—the "propaganda by deed” which still sporadically hits the headlines in many countries—Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan. Mexico, Argentina, US and England.

"Error has its logic as well as truth. Once you reject the political action of the working-class, you are fatally driven —provided you do not wish to serve the bourgeois politicians—to accept the tactics of the Vaillants and the Henrys", observed Plekhanov. After parliamentarism was discarded, the tactics of riots and isolated uprisings were abandoned since workers, sensibly, did not want anything to do with such suicidal tactics. What was left? For the Anarchist, either syndicalism (equally disastrous) or the individual gesture, the assassin with a bomb in his briefcase—"doing the work if not receiving the pay of a spy”, as La Monte put it.

The result of the Anarchist movement’s rejection of political struggle in favour of syndicalism or terrorism is to weaken the working class movement and to encourage the forces of reaction. Special police agents infiltrate all working class organisations, laws are passed and special measures enforced which handicap socialists in their activity. Workers become hostile and reactionary. Revolution becomes a dirty word. Socialism is seen as dangerous lunacy. As Plekhanov said, "An Anarchist is a man who—when he is not a police agent—is fated always and everywhere to attain the opposite of that which he attempts to achieve".

For its chapter on scientific socialism alone, clear and concise, this book deserves to stand alongside the best-known works of Marx and Engels.

Charmian Skelton

Marx and the Anarchists (1980)

Book Review from the July 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx and the Anarchists by Paul Thomas (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980) £15.00.

This excellent book is a running commentary on Marx's fierce battles with crackpots he regarded as disasters to the socialist movement: the anarchists Max Stirner, P. J. Proudhon and Michael Bakunin. One of its principal merits is that it debunks, with the support of voluminous and correctly interpreted quotations, the idea that Marx was a dogmatic old bully, hopelessly impatient and irritable with anyone who dared to dissent from his views.

Stirner's sole claim to fame is his book, The Ego and his Own, which was purported to be a rebellious challenge to all the established institutions but is actually a pathetic rehash of Hegelian idealism. The greater part of The German Ideology, Marx and Engels' "settlement" with German philosophy, consists of the reply to "Saint Max", as they called him. Proudhon wrote so much, with so many contradictions, that it is impossible to list them all. Suffice it to say that one keen observer (Albert Hirschmann) has pointed out that Milton Friedman's arguments today were originally put forward by Proudhon in the 1840s. Bakunin was opposed to writing, on the grounds that "action", not books, was necessary (although he did write a partly autobiographical work, and the short God and the State).

All three anarchists did immense harm to the socialist cause, Stirner, with his ridiculous "personal rebellions", opposed any form of organisation or educational work, as did Bakunin and Proudhon. The latter spread more confusion than anybody in France, with his opposition to strikes, trade unions and political parties; while Bakunin succeeded in having the First International dissolved by Marx's supporters rather than allow it to be turned into a terrorist conspiracy practising robberies and assassinations. Each one of them extolled the virtues of the criminal lumpen-proletariat who, they claimed, were the real "rebels" because they had "nothing to lose"; Bakunin went so far as to advocate arson, brigandage and burglaries.

No supporter of the Socialist Party of Great Britain who reads the book can fail to be struck by the correspondence of Marx's replies to these anarchists with our Declaration of Principles. (For example, Marx's reference to the "parliamentary idiocy" of the German workers' movement in 1879: "The point was not to pursue the franchise as though it were a Workers' Holy Grail, but to transform it from the institute of fraud . . .  into an instrument of emancipation", p, 345.) Thomas also shows that, on the questions of democracy and working class understanding Marx shares our, and not Lenin's view: "We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves" (1879).

Marx held that, on every count, political action was the "first duty" of the working class. This book makes clear his views on dictatorship and democracy; the transformation of the State apparatus; the necessity of working class knowledge; the indispensability of trade unions; and the transformation of working class mentality. Above all, however, it documents his insistence on the need for a working class political party active in the struggle for socialism. It remains to add that, whether Marx considered it imperative or not, it happens to be right.

Horatio