Marxism and Anarchism

anarchismAnarchism poses some of the most important and fundamental questions for revolutionaries. These questions are concerned with power: what is it? Is it necessary? Is it legitimate? And does it inevitably corrupt those who wield it?

At first glance the notion that ‘all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’, seems thoroughly convincing. However, Marxism is a science, and science must look deeper. We fully agree with anarchists that a truly free, socialist society would be one without oppression, abuses of power and a state. We, like the anarchists, fight for the realisation of just such a society, one that provides genuine human freedom. But Marxism shows its superiority over anarchism in seeking a scientific, historical explanation for the horrors of class society. Marxists understand that society changes over time. There is nothing eternal or fixed about features such as class inequality, sexual oppression, racism, greed and the state.

Marxists understand that power is not the source of all evil. Instead, state power for instance came into history to serve a specific purpose: to protect private property. It is nothing but a tool in the hands of the given ruling class to oppress and hold down the exploited classes. So long as such opposed classes exist, it will be impossible for these classes to jointly and fairly run society, as it is impossible for a business owner to allow his or her workers to run the business.

The defeat of one class by another can only be accomplished by means of political struggle. To bring about a socialist society, it is the working class that must defeat the capitalist class. To do so, it needs its own political weapons: a workers’ state and structures of leadership. Without these, any socialist revolution is bound to be destroyed by counter-revolution.

From activists glueing themselves to trains, to throwing soup at paintings: recent years have seen numerous groups employing ‘direct action’ tactics to achieve their aims. Instead, Marxists call for mass organised struggle by workers and youth.

How can we reach the masses? This question has been at the center of revolutionary debate since the birth of the socialist movement. Revolutions are preceded by preparatory periods of ferment and debate, clarification of ideas, perspectives, and tasks, and shaking off the inertia of the previous epoch of stability and passivity. In these periods, there is a growing sense that society is at an impasse, while at the same time, history is accelerating and great events are coming. This pushes broader layers of society into political activity, and there is a thirst for ideas that can explain the crisis of the system and the way to transform it.

The debate between Marxism and Anarchism is more than a century old. It is no accident that when the class struggle again boils to the surface this debate is revived. This collection of classic and contemporary writings helps to clarify the Marxist perspective on Anarchist theory and practice, and the need for a revolutionary party. Its publication marks an important step forward in the theoretical arming of a new generation of class fighters - in preparation for the momentous struggles ahead.

The present period is the most stormy and convulsive period in history. Globalization now manifests itself as a global crisis of capitalism. Given the depth of the crisis and the worsening conditions, things are developing very quickly. The stage is set for a general revival of the class struggle, and in fact, this process has already begun.

What distinguishes Marxism from Anarchism? Why two theories, by what are they distinguished from each other, what are their relative merits, and which of the two theories, or which combination of their ideas, is the best tool for fighting capitalism and the bourgeois state? Such a process of questioning is necessary for any revolutionary, as an attempt to grasp and conquer revolutionary theory.

It is fashionable to portray Marxism as the source of authoritarianism. This accusation is raised repeatedly by anarchists, reformists and all kinds of opportunists. Bakunin was one of the more famous exponents of such accusations. But the truth is concrete and the historical facts reveal that those same elements who raise a hue and cry about authoritarianism are themselves the worst bureaucrats and authoritarians... where they manage to rule the roost.

The discipline that is imposed on the worker through the capitalist system — through wage labour, through the division of labour and the development of manufacturing — is the very same discipline that the workers turn against the bosses through organisation into trade unions and political parties of labour.  Therefore what effect does the theory and practice of Anarchism have in the attempts by the workers to forge fighting organisations? In a recent meeting of Socialist Appeal supporters in London, Alan Woods answers this question, focusing on the clashes between Marx and Bakunin in the First International, on the role of the Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, Democratic

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We publish a talk by Alan Woods on the Marxist's attitude to individual terrorism, given at the Socialist Appeal day school in London late last year. Of particular relevance following the assasination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan recently, socialism must oppose acts of indiviual terrorism - 'liberals with bombs' - because of the reactionary role they play in the labour movement.

As the old Soviet archives are opened up and studied, more material is being made available about what happened in Russia immediately after the revolution. Myths have been created about events like the Kronstadt “rebellion”, the peasant revolts, the anarchists, etc. The new material available confirms what Lenin and Trotsky explained about  these events. In spite of all attempts to slander the Bolsheviks, the truth is always concrete.

The recent anti-capitalist demonstrations have brought together many different groups protesting against the destruction of the environment, racism, the exploitation of the third world, and also many ordinary young people protesting at the state of things in general. This article debates the anarchist ideas of some of the groups organising these protests.

Ever since it was born, Marxism has had to wage a continual war to free itself of ultraleftism and opportunism. Marx and Engels waged a stubborn struggle against the ultraleft Bakunin. And the whole history of Bolshevism was a history of sharp ideological battles. Lenin was obliged more than once to combat ultraleft tendencies within the ranks of Bolshevism – for example after the defeat of the 1905 Revolution, when he found himself in a minority in the leadership on the question of the need to participate in elections to a rigged tsarist parliament and work in the trade unions and other legal and semi-legal organizations.

In May 1919 Lenin met Kropotkin in the Kremlin. Lenin admired Kropotkin, especially for his book The Great French Revolution, but the conversation revealed how the anarchist leader was more interested in this or that cooperative being set up and had lost the general picture of where the revolution was going.

Written in the summer of 1917, in the heat of the Russian Revolution, Lenin’s State and Revolution is a key work of Marxism. Here, Lenin explains that, stripped of all non-essentials, the state is in the final analysis “groups of armed men”: the army and the police, in defence of the ruling class.

"The anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? 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."

There have been many splits in the history of the Marxist movement. The enemies of Marxism seize upon this fact as proof of an inherent weakness, an intolerant spirit, excessive centralism, bureaucratic and authoritarian tendencies and so on. The same arguments were used in the First International (IWMA), when Marx and Engels were obliged to wage a ferocious struggle against the followers of the anarchist Bakunin. The document that we published in installments, Fictitious Splits in the International is a useful reminder of the differences between Marxism and anarchism. We believe it deserves a careful reading for the lessons it has for Marxists today.