Marxism and Anarchism

The document which follows is a rough outline of our introductory remarks in our meeting in the London Anarchist Bookfair. We say “rough” since we had intended to record the meeting but failed to do so. We have since had quite a few requests (even criticisms of our failure), from those not present, to make some kind of account of the meeting. The document is also not completely faithful to what was said, as the speaker digressed from the prepared introduction to deal with a couple of (positive) interjections from the floor of the meeting. The result of this was the introduction went on far beyond our intentions and took 40 minutes of a one hour meeting. It was in fact too ambitious an undertaking to tackle what amounts to the entire history of the working class in one hour even though the text can only be described as a quite superficial gloss on the big issues. This put enormous pressure on the comrade moderating the discussion as he tried to get as many different viewpoints from what was a very packed meeting (despite being allocated one of the larger rooms people were standing several deep in the corridor and many went away when they realised they were too distant from the room). To say that the interest shown rather surprised us would be an understatement but the impressive thing noted by our comrade in the summing up was the self-discipline of everyone despite the fact that we still have enormous disagreements on how the working class can achieve its liberation. It made you feel that here were people of the same class who could calmly and rationally debate prefiguring in themselves a society without classes or states.

Of course not all was sweetness and light. Some anarchist comrades said they could not accept that the Bolsheviks had no real plans in 1917 and that the Bolsheviks were the party of counter-revolution. Some argued that the Bolsheviks had suppressed the spontaneous movement of the class. A comrade from AF said that they actually carried out the programme that Marx had later rejected at the end of the Communist Manifesto alluded to in the introduction. Some of this was countered by a young Canadian comrade of the ICT and an ICC comrade supported him by focussing on the international issue in the Russian Revolution starting with the famous quote from Rosa Luxemburg that the Russian Revolution could only pose the question of socialism. It could only be answered by international revolution. He particularly agreed with the presentation on the question of the disaster in Spain of accepting anti-fascism instead of maintaining proletarian autonomy. Someone from Occupy London also took issue with the characterisation of their movement as inter-classist whilst one anarchist comrade seriously posed the question of the inability of anarchists to get together to organise amongst themselves let alone with revolutionary marxists given the prevalence of individualism amongst them. Perhaps most surprisingly was the contribution from the International Bolshevik Tendency which agreed with the presentation and said they were against state capitalism too!

All this was very politely and cogently argued. In summing up we ignored the Russian Revolution issue to focus on today and the issues that are being posed to the working class everywhere which required that real revolutionaries work on the ground to oppose not only austerity but also those who had no idea of a different world such as the Left Unity campaigns of the traditional left. The meeting certainly encouraged the idea that this was not a plea which had fallen of deaf ears and that made more likely the prospect of communism or if you preferred anarchy. Both the introduction and the conclusion were greeted with warm applause.

Marxism and Anarchism

The Real Divide Amongst Revolutionaries

When we first suggested a public meeting on “Marxism and Anarchism” someone on Facebook immediately changed the title to “Marxism versus anarchism” so we had to quickly point out that this was not a repeat of the sloganised bunfights of the past where one side would counter one Kronstadt with two Barcelonas or whatever. Nor do we wish to investigate the origin of the split between Marxism and Bakuninism in the years of the First International (useful though that can be). No, our starting point came from reading Fighting for Ourselves by the Solidarity Federation which we bought here last year. We’ll refer to this later but what struck us in that work was the course of anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist history politically has certain parallels with the course that Marxism has followed. Our starting premise is that of Daniel Guérin "Anarchism and Marxism at the start, drank at the same proletarian spring". And anarchists today quite happily quote the Communist Manifesto that we are aiming for a society of “freely associated producers” although if you are the likes of David Graeber you don’t acknowledge that this is Marx. Where we hope to end up is that the history of the working class up to now has refined the meaning of what its revolution is, and the real divide is not so much between Marxism and Anarchism per se, but between those revolutionaries who see a future as a cooperative collective one without classes and without a state and those who claim the title of Marxist or Anarchist but either defend a distorted version of capitalism, or are quite happy to pursue a lifestyle within it without challenging the bases of the state or class rule.

Marxism and the State

There is no doubt that the Marxists have had the greater baggage to ditch in this respect. For many so-called Marxists of Trotskyist and Stalinist persuasion the only work they have really read and understood is the Communist Manifesto.

In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels laid out the basic premises of a communist society as a system of “freely associated producers” but surprisingly wrote nothing about the state, even if its disappearance is implied in the phrase. On the contrary they argued that the State could be used to arrive at communism. Having stated

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Then follows a list which includes

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

However the method of Marxism, as we understand it, is historical materialism and this means also learning from the real experience of the proletariat. This equally applied to Marx and Engels. After the Paris Commune Marx and Engels quickly recognised two things. They first recognised that the programmatic list at the end of the Communist Manifesto was inadequate.

The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II.

Marx went on to add:

That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organisation of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated.

Secondly, Marx and Engels’ conception of the state had changed.

One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”

Or as Engels put it in On Authority “the political state and with it its political authority will disappear as a result of the socialist revolution".(1)

Social Democracy and Statism

But this was not understood by their followers in Germany and France. They elevated the conquest of political power via parliamentary means to the main aim of their activity. They ignored what Marx and Engels amended in the Communist Manifesto. Marx later remarked about the French Parti Ouvrier that all he knew was that if they were “Marxists” then he was not. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme in 1875 (but not published in German until 1891 when the Social Democrats could say it was out-of-date as they now had the new Erfurt Programme – a programme which elevated reformism whilst revolution was relegated to a distant future) Marx laid into the reformism of the German Social Democrats especially in accepting the Lassallean notion of a “free People’s state” as a contradiction in terms, But Marx and Engels both thought that time and experience would alter the course of social democracy. It did not; and Engels, in one of his last writings in the 1895 complained that the editors of Vorwarts had edited out everything revolutionary in what he was writing. Indeed he died not knowing that Kautsky had also edited out his call for “streetfighting” to attack the bourgeois state.

The debate in SD was thus mainly about how to achieve state power for the parties of the Second International. The best, revolutionary elements in the Second international were more concerned about internationalism and the threat of imperialist war than anything else and they were in a minority.

It was only the failure of the revolutionary wave and in particular the erection of a state capitalist regime in the USSR that forced some Marxist minorities to reappraise the role of the state in the revolutionary process. The publication of more of Marx’s writings on the state and revolution AFTER the First World War also assisted in this but the biggest inspiration for re-examination came with the formation of workers’ councils in Russia and other places after 1905. Here was a historically discovered solution to the question of how to smash the bourgeois state without re-erecting a permanent repressive body. Unfortunately the Bolsheviks, despite being the most revolutionary of the Social Democrats followed the example set by the Mensheviks and SRs who had imposed a cabinet (the Provisional Government) on top of the soviet structure in the period of so-called “dual power”. The founding of Sovnarkom (the Council of Peoples Commissars which was going to be called Ministers until Trotsky suggested “commissars” sounded more revolutionary!) meant that the Bolsheviks carried on the same process. At the time the Bolsheviks were not worried as they assumed that the revolution in Russia was only the first step in the international revolution. Many Bolsheviks leaders stated that without such they were doomed. The April theses may have led the Bolsheviks to ditch their old Social Democratic two-stages programme but they had not replaced it with another and responded to situations rather than had a programme. However as the Russian proletariat remained isolated the social democratic idea that the party takes power on behalf of the proletariat and decrees socialism re-asserted itself and continued to be the basis on which the Third International operated. Indeed for Stalinists, Castroists, Maoists and Trotskyists it remains true to the present but it is no longer true for those who base themselves on Marx’s revolutionary method and principles. We should not forget too that it was the Left Communists in Russia who published 5 issues of the paper Kommunist (now available in French) from March-May 1918 who were the first to condemn the direction of the revolution as heading towards state capitalism (something with which Lenin agreed but he argued that this was a good thing). In the person of Radek (later to abandon left communism for national bolshevism) they even voiced the idea that a military victory which did not bring about socialism would be a bigger disaster than outright defeat. Their principled opposition though died a death with the onset of the very civil war they feared.

After the failure of the Russian Revolution many Marxists (particularly those coming from German left communism) now rejected the party form and insisted that the only route to revolution was via councils. Today there are few who call themselves councilist but councilism has had an effect on both marxists and anarchists since then. Italian Left communism was slower to come to an understanding of the role of the state and the nature of revolution. Bordiga had always argued for a party dictatorship even in the councils so it was not until the Internationalist Communist Party emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War that a full reappraisal was made. The party eventually split with a Bordiga who still denied that Russia was state capitalist. In its 1952 Platform it declared that the working class does not delegate to anyone not even to its revolutionary party the task of establishing socialism. Revolutionaries might lead the way, might fight in the class-wide organs for an autonomous proletarian perspective but they cannot finish the process since socialism demands the active participation of everyone if it is to function at all. The working class internationally will have to establish whatever bodies it can (factory committees, local bodies, councils or whatever). It really will be the Big Society stripped of class antagonism, patronage, money, national frontiers, and standing armies. Mass activity is the only guarantee against the revival of a statist repressive organ.

Anarchist Agonising

Anarchism too has had to struggle against reformist tendencies. I won’t go into those earlier mutualists who thought you could have a socialist society based on money like Darimon but focus on the later and openly revolutionary anarcho-syndicalist movement which arose most strongly in those countries where the class war was so naked that social democratic gradualism made little sense. To take the example from France the Confederation General du Travail from 1895 seemed like an antidote to social democratic reformism. Intransigent bosses meant this was the era of the mass strike and you fought to win or lose but this was to change. To quote from the Solfed Pamphlet Fighting for Ourselves.

… in the early 20th century bosses and the state began to react to the gains of the CGT with a more conciliatory attitude. This increased the space for reformists to operate as class collaboration could be seen to bear fruit. By 1909 the growth of the union had put the revolutionaries in a minority (the CGT grew from 100,000 members in 1902 to 700,000 in 1912, out of a population of 7 million [It was over 35 million – CWO]). Victor Griffuelhes resigned as general secretary amidst machinations against him and Émile Pouget left the union disillusioned. The slide into class collaboration, reformism and bureaucratisation was crowned by the CGT’s support for the national war effort in 1914. This was the most decisive break with its revolutionary internationalist origins.

The CGT was not alone. Kropotkin like the vast majority of the so-called Marxists of the Second International came to the support of his country of Russian Tsarism as a counter to German militarism in 1914. And if Kronstadt was to be the greatest demonstration that proletarian revolution was nothing to do with statism then the Spanish Civil War demonstrated that abstract anarchist principles in themselves are not enough. Spain in 1936 was as isolated (perhaps more so) than revolutionary Russia had been in 1918. Because Spain had not taken part in the First World War its historical trajectory was different to most European states. A growing revolutionary movement came full square up against the impending imperialist war. A proletarian revolutionary situation was thus rapidly and dramatically turned into an arena for imperialist rivalry. Under the pressure to support a Stalinist Popular Front against fascism (i.e. to take sides in an imperialist conflict) the FAI-CNT leaders famously abandoned opposition to the state to join first the Barcelona and then the central Madrid government. The revolution was called off (despite what was happening on the ground in the collectives) and in supporting the supposed anti-fascist popular front dreamed up by the Third International the Spanish working class was handed over to Russian imperialism.

Revolutionaries for the Revolution

The weakness of both those marxists and anarchists can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of both class and the class struggle. If you don’t apply class criteria to any issue you end up in reformism. Today the statist “marxists” still make their calls for nationalisation, for united or even popular fronts with this or that national movement to find a quick fix to arrive at what they call socialism (but we call state capitalism). As Marxists we have nothing in common with them. They do not even share our vision of a communist society. Unless we get rid of money alongside exploitation (and exploitation is not about extra-low wages but about being denied the product of your own labour), unless we create structures which replace the repressive apparatus of the state, unless we have a revolution on a world scale we cannot arrive at communism.

And this seems to be more of the real issue. Reformism is currently rearing its head in many different forms. Obviously we still have the traditional trades’ union fair days’ wage demands but there is also the reformism of those who think that we can build communist economic or social bodies without destroying the power of the capitalist state. There is the reformism of the Occupy Movement (the populist 99% versus 1%) which does not recognise that the working class because it has no property to defend stands in a different relation to capitalism than many of the so-called 99%.

In the current global capitalist crisis the goal of human emancipation may not be as far away as we think. Although it is possible to talk of anti-capitalism now without being seen as certifiable, as a class we have hardly started in the process of opposition. What we now have is a rich experience of 200 years of struggle. It is an experience which remains unknown to most people today. It certainly has not yet been absorbed by the majority of the world working class.

The continuing high organic composition of capital means that years of austerity will reduce still further the ability of capitalism to integrate new generations of well-educated workers into production. This will provide opportunities for revolutionaries to take that awareness of our own past to wider and wider layers of the working class. This does not mean that all we have to do is pose the question of communism as a nice idea for the future and do nothing today. Theory and practice are not separate. We have to link the struggle for communism with the deprivation that capitalism is imposing now on workers. We have to make this link to the widest possible layers of the working class. There can be no real revolutionary movement which is not solidly based in the working class itself.

But this emphasises another real divide between revolutionaries and reformists. Whilst revolutionaries are calling for us not only to fight the cuts but to fight the system that causes them the reformists at best say only “fight the cuts” or “defend the NHS”. They don’t raise the question of the nature of the system. For the majority of those in the old labour movement from the Stalinists to the Trotskyists this is no accident. They want to support some electoral alternative (usually a return of Labour) to the Tories, not a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. They still support the state as the bulwark of their socialist credentials.

And this seems to be where the real divide exists today. Anti-state and anti-capitalist revolutionaries share a similar vision of a communist society. It is time that revolutionaries recognised this distinction and recognised each other. What we don’t share is the way that might be arrived at but that is up for debate (and until there is a real class movement worthy of the name then it is an open debate). To finish with something appropriate from the Solfed pamphlet they quote an alleged remark of Bismarck in the 1870s: “Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should the Black and Red ever again unite.”

(1) In Marx-Engels Collected Works Volume 23 p.425 (Lawrence and Wishart 1988)

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Comments

Near the end of the second paragraph it reports that an anarchist questioned the ability of anarchists to organise..because of the prevalence of 'individualism' amongst them. That reminded me of 1955 in London, where an anarchist published something called 'Minus One'. Opponents of conscription and anarchists often met at the 'Malatesta Club' , many of whom were readers of 'Freedom' and would hear its editor and comrades speak at Marble Arch on Sundays. Since those days, I came to the view that if a big anarchist wanted to do something to a small anarchist that the small anarchist didn't like, I didn't see any anarchist reason why he shouldn't, but, in repeating that view in more recent years to an anarchist selling a paper on a demo, his response was less than polite ! Anyway, whilst reams and books are written on anarchist theory, and arguments continue, hopefully to 'mutual aid' (!! Kropotkin), the long term view that power rests on violence persists, whatever the views of workers who want an end to violence by means of gaining power. The 2009 paperback by Slavoj Zizek, 'First as tragedy, then as farce', proved to be a challenging recent read for me, but many might find his chapter 'It's Ideology, Stupid!' enlightening, as we remember that the dominant ideology of a society is that of the ruling class. What next? A measure of individual thought seems essential for all who disagree with what's going on as inflicted by capitalism, then good for the working class ought to come of it, as results of meetings, big and small, and use of the web. When my anarchist friend was once threatened with violence (not from me!), he retorted "Get back to your psychopathic ward!" Warmongers please note !

Honestly I wondered about that one too. What drives me to communism is individualism, why is this viewed as an impediment to organization? Is organization oppressive to the individual?

"What drives me to communism is individualism". I doubt it, What drives you to communism is that you are (in spite of any personal declarations) a social being. The notion of individualism which has escalated in the years since the working class in the capitalist heartlands was decimated is a great problem for us now as many think that organisation does mean cramping their style even nif like our organisation it is made up entirely of volunteers who only give what they can. The fear of organisation and rampant individualism is a reflection of the victory of capitalist ideology to me.

To me the whole point is capitalism is so anti-individual, in that it corrugates and enforces our identities upon us. I am a communist in the hopes we can live in a society of true individual uniqueness, capitalism makes it purposefully difficult to be a "unique individual". This doesn't conflict with me being a social being, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell me why I do what I do.... To me individualism doesn't translate to a fear of organization, which I think you mistakenly accused me of years ago when I wrote that letter to you guys. The assumptions you make reflect poorly upon you.

This is a forum where people can express their individual views (including those who have to edit it). The last sentence was not a criticism of you directly but of a current general tendency that seeems to be prevalent. Hopefully it is breaking down in the face of the enormity of capitalist contradictions. Agreed at the end of the day communism will allow us to fully realise our potential as individuals and organisation is not a barrier to this. But I still stick to the social being idea.

To me the communist movement might be compared to a great symphony orchestra. The greater the talent of the individual players the better the orchestra. But if the individuals who form the whole just play on their own, then they're hardly likely to be any better than a one man band: all thumps, rattles and squeaks. There is a tendency for comrades to want to cling to "individualism" as a sort of personal package: my private individualism (my ego?) is me. Surely this idea comes from bourgeois ideology, and just works to keep us divided from each other, and scared stiff to join an organization - even a communist organization - for fear of losing our treasured individual fruit pie of an individuality. Fear of loss of individuality is like the fear of freedom that stems from bourgeois rule. Freedom from fear, and the solidarity of communist organizations is the very soil within which real individual growth can be achieved.

The preceding comments by our editor and Charlie are fascinating. Years ago I heard of a wish, apparently by someone of authority in China, that comrades should be 'anonymous human cells in the living church of communism', whereas Jean-Paul Sartre, known by some as a communist, certainly an existentialist, described hell as being "other people" ! I suppose that there always has been and probably always will be an ongoing dialectical interface between each person and their immediate and wider environment. Charlie's inspiring concept of the communist movement being likened to a great symphony orchestra might also be compared with the whole of humanity, striving, in some respects, to be operating for the benefit of our planetary home. There is an old saying that 'charity begins at home', which can be used in reactionary ways for nationalism of course, but recent major natural and economic disasters might help us all to regard our real home as being planet earth. When workers of the world have united, we shouldn't have to pay rent on it !

I only agree to Charlie's symphony orchestra if we have rotating conductors and I can stick to playing the triangle (this on the grounds of saving everyone else from pain)!

I'm sure you'll play the triangle exquisitely Cleishbotham and that your timbre will be out of this world. As to the matter of conductors...ideally we'll all play so much in sympathy with each other, so much in a kind of intuitive solidarity, that we may not need a conductor at all!

I doubt it, What drives you to communism is that you are

Is a presumptuous and accusatory statement which you are prone to and it is rude and alienating. 7 years ago you accused me of having a fear of organization... which is the farthest thing from the truth, its in your head, now stop.

In the article you say ,,5 issues of the paper Kommunist`` is it this one with the summary which is in Marxists.org?

,,2. A daily newspaper issued by the “Left-Communists” in Petrograd from March 5 to March 19, 1918 as the “organ of the St. Petersburg Committee and the St. Petersburg Area Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.” Only eleven issues appeared. It reflected the attitude of N. Bukharin and others on the Bolshevik Central Committee opposed to the negotiations with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk, whose delegation from the Soviets was headed Leon Trotsky. Kommunist, advocated “Revolutionary War” against the German Army as a way of fomenting revolution in Germany. The Left Communists regarded this as a principal, as did many Left-Socialist Revolutionaries. Publication of Kommunist, was ceased by decision of the Petrograd City Party Conference of March 20, 1918. The conference stated that the policy of the Petrograd Committee, as expressed in the newspaper Kommunist, was deeply erroneous, and that it completely failed to reflect the attitude of the Petrograd organisation of the Communist Party. The conference declared Petrogradskaya Pravda to be the organ of the Petrograd Party organisation in place of Kommunist.´´

marxists.org

It is not exist in other languages..for example russian?

Kind Regards

Renoir

I don't recognise the description on marxists.org. as being anything close to the truth (it bowdlerises the issues between the left communist and the rest of the Bolshevik Party and the first edition of Kommunist was not published until April 20 1918) although the numbers quoted will have to be checked. Thanks for your enquiry and pointing this out.

The book we were referring to is published in French by Editions Smolny (I think they are based in Toulouse) and was translated from the Russian originals. Unfortunately I just gave my copy to a young Francophone comrade so have to send for a new one to check out the information. The introduction was written jointly by Michel Roger and a member of the Controverses collective (you might find material at leftcommmunism.org). You can also find Ian Hebbes' (who gave us an influential talk on the Russian left communists a few weeks before he died) stuff on the left communists on libcom.org. The ICC have published a book on the Russian left communists (now in several languages I believe) and Hillel Ticktin's Critique group published the original Theses of the left communists in English as a small pamphlet in the 1970s. You might find more answers there.

Anti-state and anti-capitalist revolutionaries share a similar vision of a communist society. It is time that revolutionaries recognised this distinction and recognised each other. What we don’t share is the way that might be arrived at but that is up for debate (and until there is a real class movement worthy of the name then it is an open debate). To finish with something appropriate from the Solfed pamphlet they quote an alleged remark of Bismarck in the 1870s: “Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should the Black and Red ever again unite."

There is benefit in dicussing with those who declare themselves anarchists but is it really the case that we share a vision of the future?

Briefly, quoting Bukharin again

Our ideal solution to this is centralised production, methodically organised in large units and, in the final analysis, the organisation of the world economy as a whole. Anarchists, on the other hand, prefer a completely different type of relations of production; their ideal consists of tiny communes which by their very structure are disqualified from managing any large enterprises, but reach "agreements" with one another and link up through a network of free contracts. From an economic point of view, that sort of system of production is clearly closer to the medieval communes, rather than the mode of production destined to supplant the capitalist system. But this system is not merely a retrograde step: it is also utterly utopian. The society of the future will not be conjured out of a void, nor will it be brought by a heavenly angel. It will arise out of the old society, out of the relations created by the gigantic apparatus of finance capital. Any new order is possible and useful only insofar as it leads to the further development of the productive forces of the order which is to disappear. Naturally, further development of the productive forces is only conceivable as the continuation of the tendency of the productive process of centralisation, as an intensified degree of organisation in the "administration of things" that replaces the bygone "government of men".

Now pinning anarchism down is difficult because it consists of a multiplicity of views. But where such views contradict Marxism, then anarchism remains a defence of bourgeois liberalism and a reactionary drag on the proletariat.

I can accept that much activity in the post revolutionary society will be locally decided, but where there is need for global co-ordination, where there is need for decision making beyond the immediate situation, the anarchist vision generally departs from what I understand to be the dictatorship of the proletariat extending to the world scale. I think we have to be careful to avoid comfortable utopian schemes and accept the catastophic reality of revolution which emerges from capitalist society.

Uncomfortable realities regarding the supression of the bourgeoisie on the world scale, the difficulties of a transitional period which may not immediately break all the major capitalist economies, the persistance of reactionary ideas, global organisation etc have to be faced.

Much of this remains hypothetical before the concrete situation arises, but whatever clarity we can acheive beforehand is beneficial.

Following stevein7's comments, in so far as a 'vision of the future' is required, the following explanations, rather than 'defences' of views, seem necessary and maybe helpful for all who might be beginning to examine anarchist views, or to all who have spent hours or years doing so.

The future will consist of those conditions of the present which continue to exist, plus new factors. Working people, especially parents, simply don't want conditions of lawlessness and chaos. Fairly small numbers of them who take to rioting, in exasperation, soon grow tired of doing so, whereas the majority want some sorts of order regained, even imposed. A return to 'normal' , although unsatisfactory, will seem better than turmoil in which all sorts of destruction has occurred. Whereas anarchists reject being 'governed', the vast majority of the working class like to know who's in charge, who is responsible, and, rather than faced with massive uncertainties, want to know what to expect. Without clear plans for the running of the economy, workers cannot be expected to support calls for unknown prospects, no matter how attractively they might be pitched in rhetorical colours.

Whilst total lawlessness is rejected by normal workers, so also is ultra draconian domination by laws imposed rather than agreed on. The whole body of laws has been inherited from yesteryear, in some respects modified or rejected or made more acceptable as time goes by, via parliamentary measures. Thus between total anarchy and Gestapo-type edicts there is a dialectically comprising middle ground, which variously serves either the bourgeoisie or the working class, between which there is a constant struggle, even if largely hidden, but in some ways permitting a modus vivendi amongst many dimensions.

The growth of populations, with subsequent reduced availability of space, water, energy, 'jobs', and so on, means that there is developing an increasing need for control and regulation of the needs of society. Whilst local concerns might be best dealt with by local workers, even all those will largely depend upon overall situations, which can only be overseen and regulated by countrieswide governments, which will need to combine worldwide to solve worldwide problems. Just how those tasks can be effectively tackled within the uses of money remains to be seen, but it seems likely that money won't just be abolished for some considerable time, whatever the complaints against capitalism as a system.

T34, your views deserve an answer but for the moment I will limit myself to saying that I agree that we need to establish what we can regarding the transition to communism.

I think that the immediate abolition of money is likely where a successful insurrection occurs but this will be replaced by some other device/devices that allows for unequal access to products for a period. The law of value is not immediately abolished.

Your ''third way" prescription may describe a capitalist state which creates the illusion of plurality and neutrality but in the end always serves the capitalists when the social order is in question.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is the rule of the class through mass organs of participation. It is not a shared power with the bourgeoisie. Its task is the supression of the bourgeoisie and will be as draconian as required.

As I am currently reading Bukharin and in particular his comments on anarchism I will simply quote a little more, but from a different source...

  1. Lumpenproletarian socialism (anarchism). The anarchists reproach the communists on the ground that communism (so they contend) will maintain the State authority in the future society. As we have seen, the assertion is false. The essential difference consists in this, that the anarchists are far more concerned with dividing up than with the organization of production; and that they conceive the organization of production as taking the form, not of a huge cooperative commonwealth, but of a great number of 'free', small, self-governing communes. It need hardly be said that such a social system would fail to liberate mankind from nature's yoke, for in it the forces of production would not be developed even to the degree to which they have been developed under capitalism. Anarchism would not increase production, but would disintegrate it. It is natural that, in practice, the anarchists should advocate the dividing up of articles of consumption and should oppose the organization of large-scale production. They do not, for the most part, represent the interests and aspirations of the working class; they represent those of what is termed the lumpenproletariat, the loaferproletariat; they represent the interests of those who live in bad conditions under capitalism, but who are quite incapable of independent creative work.

A second quote...

Objections to the dictatorship of the proletariat arise from various quarters. First of all come the anarchists. They say that they are in revolt against all authority and against every kind of State, whereas the communist bolsheviks are the sustainers of the Soviet Government. Every kind of government, they continue, involves the abuse of power and the limitation of freedom. For this reason it is necessary to overthrow the bolsheviks, the Soviet Government, the dictatorship of the proletariat. No dictatorship is necessary, no State is necessary. Such are the arguments of the anarchists. Only in appearance is their criticism revolutionary. In actual fact the anarchists do not stand more to the left, but more to the right than the bolsheviks. Why, indeed, do we need the dictatorship? We need it for the organized destruction of the bourgeois régime; we need it that we may crush the enemies of the proletariat by force. Quite openly we say, by force. The dictatorship is the axe in the hands of the proletariat. Anyone who is opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat is one who is afraid of decisive action, is afraid of hurting the bourgeoisie, is no revolutionist. When we have completely vanquished the bourgeoisie, the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat will no longer exist. But as long as the life-and-death struggle continues it is absolutely incumbent upon the working class to crush its enemies utterly. AN EPOCH OF PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP MUST INEVITABLY INTERVENE BETWEEN A CAPITALIST AND A COMMUNIST SOCIETY.

Both quotes from ABC of Communism

Chapter 3: Communism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Thank you, stevein7, for your comments of 2014-06-30 16:22.. I'm tempted to revert to the old hecklers' shout - "What has all that got to do with the price of fish?!", but of course the subjects deserve better than that. Your inclination to imagine that money would be abolished immediately after a successful insurrection doesn't convince me that that would happen. For it to be replaced by 'some other device(s)' sounds fraught with the likelihood of ongoing confusion and maybe corruption and fraud, such as spivs having a nice line in petrol coupons etc. The issue as to what would constitute a 'successful insurrection' probably needs further consideration, as to its duration.

Whereas the raising of production has always been a traditional ambition of marxists and maybe of some anarchists, in these days of worldwide 'overproduction' it might be worth considering to what extent, if at all, an increase will actually be needed, because already it seems that there is 'enough to go round', if a more sensible use of productive facilities were to be adopted. For instance, towards the end of the 20th century there were reports of 'food mountains', whilst today we see millions of cars being churned out onto roads which are already congested and even nearing gridlock, with insufficient places on which to park them all.

The problem with trying to gain support for any sort of dictatorship, even one by the proletariat, is that people don't like being bossed about and ordered what to do. Of course it might be thought to be very different if it were to be the workers doing the bossing rather than the capitalists, and questions as to which class controls the media are increasingly under focus. If you don't want a new version of Stalinism nor the continuation of the capitalist status quo, then perhaps further thinking is required. Time flies.

We've only got "overproduction" T 34 in so far as the bourgeoisie can't sell all that they produce. But there certainly isn't enough to go round at the moment. However, freed from the the shackles of capitalism and the bourgeoisie we might fairly quickly be able to produce enough to at least feed everybody. What a triumphant revolutionary breakthrough that would be.

Thanks, Charlie, yes as regards insufficient at the moment to go round for everybody, I guess you're right. As I see it, the problem is how to persuade workers that, in the absence of actual plans for a workers' owned and controlled worldwide communist economy, the present capitalist system with all its faults should be overthrown and that then somehow needed plans would be rapidly, yes rapidly made for immediate implementation. No, it's not too early for 'blueprints', because without them the whole idea remains hypothetical. Parents can't bet with any certainty that violent revolution will lead to food on the shelves of what used to be capitalist supermarkets placed under the control of revolutionary guards to avert hoarding. Propaganda for communism needs to move on from dreams to science. Builders need architects and plans before foundations are laid, let alone trowelling of bricks. Architects of communism need to move a lot further ahead than plans for the demolition of capitalism, if communism is ever again going to seem likely. It's not now so much a problem of telling people that capitalism produces to poverty and wars, but of explaining just how communism would actually be any good, here, yes, here, as well as somewhere else, everywhere else.

It would not be "science" for us to speculate on the issues you want T34. You need to study the exact history of previous revolutionary attempts to see how different the circumstances are in each. In the meantime you should read the GIK's book on the principles of production and distribution in a future society en route to communism (written in 1934). Its not the final word but it is a starting point.

Responding to editor's comment of 2014-07-03, no doubt you have read the GIK book maybe more than once, but, so far, I haven't seen it, nor any source of it, except at a price of £40 online. If you regard it as so important, would you not consider providing readers of your website with clear summaries of its main points? Whether its views of 1934, at the stages of development at that time, are of any relevance to 2014 onwards, remains to be known by more than just me.

As for your dismissing speculation as not being science, then, whatever you think of Karl Popper, I vaguely recall his having argued something about science progressing by means of conjectures, refutations and then maybe tentative conclusions, which maybe ties in with theories of dialectics, but I'm not asking for vast time-consuming responses to this paragraph.

T34, here is a link to the Appel book,

libcom.org

Thanks for the link. I had a quick look at it, but found that even just the summary would need about 18 pages to print off. I can't be bothered to wade through all that, let alone the article. If you actually want to interest readers in it, suggest you summarise clearly key bits of it.

I am going to link to an article which specifically mentions the article above. As you know I voiced the opinion that too much had been conceded to anarchist perspectives, and I think that it is wrong to describe our politics as ultra left (as I think has been said),igcl.org I think the article also comes out against revolutionaries fighting for improvements under capitalism, another issue where I seem to be at odds with the flow.

The working class, internationally, benefits from a relatively favourable political situation. Its resistance to capitalist austerity is undeniable. Of course, there are no big economic nor political victories. But is it possible to obtain real long term economic gains in the epoch of decadent capitalism? The only real victory resulting from struggle is the growing organization of the working class in political terms, therefore the extension of class consciousness, in order to attack capitalism in a revolutionary fashion. Left communist groups are the main factor in the process of the extension of working class organization. Thus, their importance cannot be denied nor diminished.