While writing my last blog on the Makhnovists, I recalled that I wrote a letter to the ISR on both Makhno and James Green on the Chicago Anarchists. So I wondered if they had printed it and what they said. They did and so, somewhat belatedly, I will make a few comments. As such, I will be covering ground I have covered before – but I do find this attempt to turn the Chicago Anarchists into Marxists annoying and a symbol of a deeper problem with Leninism, namely its historical revisionism.
In terms of the original reply to my letter, I did not actually see it at the time. Not being in America, I did not see the journal often. I also thought, given experiences with letters to its British equivalent (Socialist Review) that it was doubtful I would be given space to reply. Space is always limited in supply – at least for critics of the party! My follow-up letter to Socialist Review, for example, was not published due to “space considerations” – the only exception I’ve come across is Weekly Worker, which used to print actual debates over many issues (and perhaps still does, I’ve not bothered with it for a long time having better things to do). So I left it with my letter – from my experience with the British SWP I knew that a debate is the last thing that would be allowed. Anarchist journals, I should note, are better at this – having had reasonably long debates in both Anarchy and Freedom (although I gave up reading the former long ago as it got increasingly irrelevant and boring).
So I thought I would see if my letter was on-line – and it was. And, as I thought, my short letter produced a longer reply – and that would have necessitated an even longer response to correct these distortions, errors and stupidities. In this blog I will cover one aspect of my letter, namely on the Chicago anarchists. I will cover the second part – on the Makhnovists – in a later blog.
This is no isolated case – a leading member of the SWP, Paul Foot, managed to write an article on Louise Michel and somehow forget to mention she was an anarchist. Rare is the Leninist article which mentions that the Martyrs were anarchists and union leaders (it is usually one or the other). The American ISO also love the terrible book by Carolyn Ashbaugh – which denied that Lucy Parsons and the Chicago Anarchists were anarchists – going so far as to plagiarise her book in the shape of a pamphlet (the plagiarisers grasp of the subject is seen by the pamphlet proclaiming Kropotkin a pacifist!).
Clearly knowing something about a subject before writing about it is considered an optional extra in ISO-SWP circles. So they entitled their responses “ISR gets anarchism wrong” – the ironic thing is that not only do they get anarchism wrong, they also get Marxism wrong as well.
So here we go again – it is another of my Marxists write nonsense on anarchism posts. Some may wonder why I bother, indeed sometimes I wonder that too. Why? Well, I enjoy being sarcastic. I also enjoy explaining anarchist ideas and recounting anarchist history, particularly when it comes to showing the validity of anarchist critiques (Bakunin was so correct are regards “political action” producing reformism within the socialist party that Leninists now pretend that Marx and Engels did not advocate social-democratic tactics). And it annoys me to think such distortions are around and people think they are accurate – sure, the readers of the ISR reply may never read this but the possibility is there. Ultimately, falsehoods will always thrive if they are unchallenged – and it is always better to do something than nothing. But mostly because I enjoy it and the research they involve (I enjoyed re-reading Parsons’ book in this instance).
Before starting, I should note that An Anarchist FAQ discusses the case for direct action so I will not go into it here, beyond saying that the debate has moved on since the 1880s. Very few Marxists these days think voting will produce a revolution (the SPGB and its sister parties being a notable exception) and limit themselves to other – usually reformist, lesser evil or opportunist – arguments for frequenting the ballot-box. In other words, we have won that particular debate. Anyway, onto my letter, the ISR Editors’ reply and my pointing out its many flaws…
‘Dear ISR,
‘I do despair when I see academics and Marxists trying to discuss anarchism because they will always get it wrong. We had two classic examples in ISR issue 53.
‘Take James Green. He tries his best to turn the Haymarket martyrs into Marxists. He asserts that “Albert Parsons believed a strong socialist movement needed to follow the prescription put forward by Karl Marx: that is, such a movement needed a mass working-class following.” As if that were not also Bakunin’s position! He states that because the martyrs were “busy organizing their own unions” they “didn’t stop being Marxists.” Yet Marx had mocked Bakunin for arguing that (to quote Marx) the working class “must only organize themselves in trade unions” and “not occupy itself with politics.” So attempts to portray the ideas of the martyrs as Marxist requires ignoring Bakunin’s syndicalism and Marx’s consistent opposition to it.
‘The martyrs did come to see that both the state and capitalism had to be abolished at the same time and, as Green says, “the working class had to have its own institutions and its own militia, its own communal forms of decision-making.” That is, they came to the same conclusion as Bakunin had and is why they called themselves anarchists.
[…]”
Unsurprisingly, the editors likewise completely ignore Bakunin’s syndicalism (they probably know nothing of his ideas) and frankly show a wilful inability to understand basic English when it suits them.
‘The Editors’ respond
‘Iain McKay takes issue with Jim Green’s comment that the Haymarket martyrs were influenced by both Marx and anarchist thinkers. In this view, Green was merely stating a fact that is admitted by any serious historian of the period.
Any “serious historian” would find out what strategies Marx and anarchist thinkers advocated and compare them to those advocated by the Chicago Anarchists. Has Green done this? As I’ve noted elsewhere, no. So I would suggest that in this respect, Green was not “serious” and made an elemental mistake – he made no attempt to place their ideas within the context of the ideas of the time. Simply put, they called themselves anarchists for a reason as their ideas were similar to those raised by Bakunin in the First International and championed by Kropotkin from 1879 – indeed, The Alarm published translations of Kropotkin’s writings from Le Révolté.
Green’s comment raises the obvious question – were the Chicago Anarchists Marxists? A question which you would think answers itself merely by the uttering it but, for the ISR editors, no.
Paul Avrich, in his masterful book, The Haymarket Tragedy, notes that, “Parsons drew his ideas from both American and European sources. He had read a good deal of advanced literature, and the strains of Jefferson and Paine as well as Bakunin and Marx resounded through his speeches.” And he writes in another passage: “[Parsons and Spies]…were indebted to Marx as much as to Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin. Spies, in a lecture to the Chicago liberal league, called Marx a ‘modern Oedipus,’ who revealed to the world ‘the lever that caused all social phenomena.’” [115-6]
Avrich’s masterful book does not claim, as Green goes, that the Chicago Anarchists followed a Marxist strategy or remained Marxists. Quite the reverse:
‘This combination of anarchism and revolutionary unionism came to be known as the “Chicago idea,” and during the next two-and-a-half years the Chicago anarchists, and especially Parsons and Spies, used it to penetrate deeply into the labor movement and to attract a large working-class following . . . The “Chicago idea,” in its essential outlines, anticipated by some twenty years the doctrine of anarcho-syndicalism, which, in a similar way, rejected centralized authority, disdained political action, and made the union the center of revolutionary struggle as well as the nucleus of the future society. Only two notable features were lacking, sabotage and the general strike, neither of which was theoretically developed until the turn of the century. This is not to say, however, that anarcho-syndicalism originated with Parsons and his associates. As early as the 1860s and 1870s the followers of Proudhon and Bakunin were proposing the formation of workers’ councils designed both as a weapon of class struggle against the capitalists and as the structural basis for the libertarian millennium. A free federation of labor unions, Bakunin had written, would form “the living germs of the new social order, which is to replace the bourgeois world.”’ (73)
Avrich, as I did, noted that the strategy of the Chicago anarchists – revolutionary syndicalism – echoed that of Bakunin and the federalist-wing of the International. As the quote I provided by Marx from 1870 showed:
“The working class must not occupy itself with politics. They must only organise themselves by trades-unions. One fine day, by means of the Internationale they will supplant the place of all existing states.”
So Avrich’s summary concurs with Marx’s shorter one. Which is precisely what the Chicago Anarchists advocated – they had moved from Marx to Bakunin. Avrich also noted:
‘The new movement made deep inroads into the ranks of the Socialistic Labor Party, attracting many disgruntled members, whose disillusionment with the ballot and opposition to party policies led them to reject political action and adopt a revolutionary program. By the end of 1881, as George Schilling observed, the English section of the SLP in Chicago had dwindled to “a corporal’s guard,” while such influential papers as the Vorbote and Arbeiter-Zeitung had shifted their allegiance to the social revolutionary camp. Anarchism, during these initial years, had not yet crystallized into a coherent doctrine, nor was the anarchist label in wide use. Yet the social revolutionaries – as they persisted in calling themselves until the mid-1880s – emerged as an unmistakably anarchistic organization, with aims and methods that sharply distinguished it from the evolutionary and politically oriented party from which it sprang. While abandoning the principles of the SLP, however, the social revolutionaries continued to regard themselves as socialists—but socialists of a distinctive type, anti-statist, anti-parliamentarian, and anti-reformist, who called on the working class to abjure politics and involve itself in a direct and final confrontation with capital.’ (55)
A masterful summary of the evolution indeed. I wonder why the ISR Editors did not quote it. Or this passage:
‘Theirs was a militant, a revolutionary unionism, which sought to get at the root of labor’s difficulties by changing the very basis of society. The trade union, as they viewed it, was an instrument of social revolution rather than of the amelioration of conditions within the prevailing system. It was not – at least in theory – to contend for partial and superficial benefits, but was to be satisfied with nothing less than the elimination of capitalism and its replacement by a cooperative commonwealth, in which the workers would administer the economy for their own benefit. In the struggle against capitalism, moreover, the union was to shun political action, distrust all central authority, and guard against betrayals by self-important leaders. All its faith was to rest in the direct action of the rank and file.’ (72)
This is precisely what Marx mocked Bakunin for advocating! Yet, for some reason, Green and the ISR Editors think that this makes the Chicago Anarchists Marxists…. Our Leninist editors continue:
“And a book Parsons wrote from prison awaiting his execution ends with an extract from the Communist Manifesto.”
That would be the book [PDF] entitled Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis? The one which notes:
“The second part is devoted to extracts from the speeches of the eight condemned Anarchists, Samuel Fielden, August Spies, Oscar Neebe, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, George Engle, A. R. Parsons and Michel Schwab on the subject of ‘Anarchy,’ which were delivered before the court in reply to the question why sentence should not be pronounced; also articles defining Anarchy, by Peter Krapotkin, Elisee Reclus, C. L. James and other well-known Anarchists.”
That book? Still, I am sure that it was purely space considerations which saw its title go unmentioned by our fearless Champions of the Truth… or at least orthodoxy.
I should also note, pedant that I am, this book ends on page 167 (excluding appendices) with the words “This is anarchism. Anarchy is therefore the state of society at peace with itself and the world”, written by revolutionary mutualist-anarchist Dyer D. Lum. And that the appendices do not include extracts from the Communist Manifesto either – these extracts are at the end of Part I and are on the historical growth of capitalism (other extracts from another work of Marx’s discusses wage-labour). Significantly, they do not include the sections on “winning the battle of democracy” and nationalising the means of production.
Few anarchists would disagree with that analysis. Indeed, individualist Anarchist Benjamin Tucker likewise indicated his agreement with Marx on this (providing a lengthy quote from a French Social Democrat for context) and argues:
“By the death of Karl Marx the cause of labor has lost one of the most faithful friends it ever had . . . Anarchism knew in him its bitterest enemy, and yet every Anarchist must hold his memory in respect. . . . his love of equality . . . found expression in one of the most masterly expositions of the infamous nature and office of capital ever put into print . . . the economic theory developed by Karl Marx . . . being in the main a succinct and concise statement of the true principles of political economy . . . an admirable argument, and Liberty endorses the whole of it, excepting a few phrases concerning the nationalization of industry and the assumption of political power by the working people . . . the theory that labor is the source and measure of value . . . the laborer’s inability to repurchase his product in consequence of the privileged capitalist’s practice of keeping back a part of it from his wages . . . the process of the monopolistic concentration of capital and its disastrous results.” (“Karl Marx as Friend and Foe”, Instead of a Book, 476-80)
Tucker goes on to argue, rightly, much of Marx’s analysis of capital was first articulated by Proudhon. As such, it is not surprising that as former Marxists they would still embrace his analysis of capitalism and its evolution – for it was a common analysis between (individualist and social) anarchism and Marxism. This is hardly “evidence” of Marxism – it would be like suggesting that because they called themselves socialists then they were not anarchists. But only someone completely ignorant of the subject matter would make such a silly claim… oh dear, the editors quote Green as follows:
‘Yet the Internationals continued to label their publications socialist in 1885, because they adhered to Marx’s belief that capitalism would be destroyed by its own contradictions and by the inevitable emergence of a class-conscious movement of workers prepared to abolish private property along with the forms of government that sanctioned and protected it.’
It is as if our “serious historian” did not know that Kropotkin was referring to himself as a socialist and saw capitalism being overthrow by a class-conscious movement of workers in the early 1880s as well (indeed, until his death). As had Bakunin in the 1860s and 1870s. And that both had, like the Chicago Anarchists, rejected the idea of a “path to socialism via elections” and instead argued for a militant union movement instead…
Can a “serious historian” really not know that anarchists are socialists? That we happily and regularly called themselves socialists during this period? That the Haymarket Martyr Adolph Fischer stated that “every anarchist is a socialist, but every socialist is not necessarily an anarchist”? (Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis, 78) Did he not read the following words by Kropotkin in that book whose title the ISR editors could not recall:
“Anarchy, the no-government system of socialism . . . In common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites for production must, and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by the producers of wealth.” (“The Scientific Basis of Anarchy”, Anarchism: Its Philosophy and scientific Basis, 111)
Or Albert Parsons:
“There are two distinct phases of socialism in the labor movement throughout the world to-day. One is known as anarchism, without political government or authority, the other is known as state socialism or paternalism, or governmental control of everything. The state socialist seeks to ameliorate and emancipate the wage laborers by means of law, by legislative enactments. The state socialist demand the right to choose their own rulers. Anarchists would have neither rulers nor law-makers of any kind. The anarchists seek the same ends by the abrogation of law, by the abolition of all government, leaving the people free to unite or disunite as fancy or interest may dictate; coercing no one, driving no party.” (Anarchism, 93-4)
The really sad thing about all this is that the editors of ISR thought that quoting Green on how “the Internationals continued to label their publications socialist in 1885” was somehow a masterstroke of polemic brilliance, an irrefutable point, rather than a banal comment which – for those who know the subject and the period – says absolutely nothing beyond what should be a shameful ignorance of the period being discussed. Our editors proclaim:
Green, too, points out in his book, Death in Haymarket, that while revolutionary militants in Chicago by the mid–1880s identified themselves as anarchists, August Spies
‘insisted he remained a follower of Marx, and not of Marx’s anarchist enemy, Bakunin.’
And yet Spies rejected the very tactic which Marx broke-up the International over! Avrich notes the following as regards Spies:
‘When, in the spring of 1880, Frank Stauber was fraudulently denied his seat in the city council, Spies became convinced of the futility of political methods. Thereafter, he relates, he viewed the ballot “with suspicion.”’ (122)
Compare this to Marx’s words from 1880:
“That a such an organization must be pursued by all the means the proletariat has at its disposal including universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation” (Programme of the Parti Ouvrier)
Yet this is precisely what the Spies and the other Chicago Anarchists rejected – they moved from a Marxist position on “political action” to an anarchist one. They did not think it could be “transformed” into an “instrument of emancipation”. So even if Spies is not being quoted out of context (whether chronologically or textually), the awkward fact is that he was following the tactics advocated by “Marx’s anarchist enemy, Bakunin.” The editors quote Green who admits:
‘It was true that Spies and his Chicago comrades had given up hope of finding a peaceful path to socialism via elections and legislative changes, that they had broken decisively with their former comrades in the Socialistic Labor Party.’
Apparently this “serious historian” did not know that Engels proclaimed the following in 1887:
“For, as I said before, there cannot be any doubt that the ultimate platform of the American working class must and will be essentially the same as that now adopted by the whole militant working class of Europe, the same as that of the German-American Socialist Labor Party.” (“The Labor Movement in America,” Collected Works, Vol. 26, 440)
So Engels himself in 1887 said that workers in America should follow the example of the SLP… which the ISR Editors themselves admit the Chicago Anarchists had “broken decisively with”!
This is an interesting article, not least because all it says about the Chicago movement is a passing reference to “the troubles in Chicago” (435) – and that is it. All in all, despite being dead, Marx wrote only slightly less than Engels did on the Haymarket Martyrs. Now, if the Chicago Anarchists were Marxists or following Marx’s recommendations on the labour movement, would not have Engels been a bit more vocal about it? Would he not have shown some solidarity with those the ISR seem so keen to associate with Marxism? His silence speaks volumes.
Interestingly, ISR published an article by Paul D’Amato on “Marxists and Elections” which fails to mention Engels’ article in spite of it having a section on “Engels on the United States.” Likewise, whole quoting from Engels’ “A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Program of 1891,” it fails to mention that he also argued that “[o]ne can conceive that the old society may develop peacefully into the new one in countries where the representatives of the people concentrate all power in their hands, where, if one has the support of the majority of the people, one can do as one sees fit in a constitutional way: in democratic republics such as France and the U.S.A.” Or that “[i]f one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown.” We can only wonder why…
And I must note that the Socialist Labor Party was not, as Green claims, seeking “a peaceful path to socialism via elections”. In a pamphlet written in 1886 to disassociate the party from the IWPA (“We, therefore, protest against being confounded and in any way identified with Anarchists of any type; we are the implacable enemies of all anarchism”) they note:
“We do not in the least deny that we have very little hope for an entirely peaceful renewal of society and politics and that we may have to fight for the redemption of the working class from the threatening complete thralldom. But that war must be forced upon us — we try our best efforts to avoid it, and though this may be impossible in most of the European States, we must and do consider it possible in the United States and wherever freedom of speech and of the press, the right to peacefully assemble and organize, and universal suffrage (inclusive of the suffrage of women) are not curtailed by existing laws.” (Socialism and Anarchism)
Which was, of course, the position of Marx and Engels – so they were being orthodox Marxists. Indeed, a previous summary by my good self which appeared in Weekly Worker was praised by a SPGB member.
After completely ignoring both the actual evolution of the political ideas of the Chicago Anarchists and the ideas of Marx and Engels, our editors go for broke:
Perhaps Mr. McKay’s anarchist sectarianism blinds him to the fact that it might be possible for militants in the 1880s to hold views influenced by both Marxist and anarchist thinkers.
So stating facts is now “sectarianism”! But yet, if they knew their history, they would know that Bakunin was influenced by Marx. Or, if they read the article and the letter they published, they would know that Green did not say the Chicago Anarchists were influenced by Marx, he said that they “didn’t stop being Marxists.” If Green had simply said they were influenced by Marx I would hardly have bothered writing my letter but, no, he said they remained Marxists. To do so means completely failing to understand what Marxism and anarchism meant at the time. But, apparently, seeking to show this is “sectarianism”… oh hum.
The ISR Editors continue:
That Bakunin, according to McKay, also understood the need for a “mass working-class following” adds nothing toward illuminating the truth or falsity of Green’s view.
Actually, it was the quote by Marx mocking the position the Chicago Anarchists had come to which illuminates the truth or falsity of Green’s view. In it Marx states Bakunin opposed political action and favoured union organisation and struggle, seeing these unions (the International) as the basis of a free socialist society. As did, for example, Albert Parsons:
“The Communist Anarchists or Internationalists, as our organisation is alternatively called, have on some occasions found it necessary to criticise adversely the tactics, propaganda and aims of some Trades unions . . . The International recognises in the Trades Unions the embryonic group of the future ‘free society.’ Every Trades Union is, nolens volens [whether willing or not], an autonomous commune in the process of incubation. The Trades Union is a necessity of capitalistic production, and will yet take its place by superseding it under the system of universal free co-operation.” (“The International”, The Alarm, 4 April 1885)
It is not “according to” me that Bakunin advocated mass working-class organisation, it is a well-established fact known by anyone who is remotely familiar with his ideas – so that excludes most Marxists, as our editors show. Now, if someone claims that people are organising in a specific manner – namely militant unionism – and reject another – “political action” – then they are not following the ideas of someone who explicitly opposed such a strategy! If that someone explicitly links such a strategy to another then we can say that those people are following the strategy of that other person. Which is why both the Chicago militants and Bakunin called themselves anarchists… You would think that this shows the “truth or falsity of Green’s view,” but apparently not. It appears what Marx, Bakunin or the Chicago anarchists actually advocated is of no matter!
Then they decide to abuse English along with history and logic:
As far as Marx mocking Bakunin for arguing that the working class “must only organize themselves in trade unions”—McKay seems to miss the “only” in the sentence. Marx, as anyone familiar with his works knows, was one of the first socialists to support trade unions as a means of developing the fighting strength of the working class. However, he believed that trade unions were insufficient to achieve socialism, and that the working class also needed its own political party, a view that separated him from the anarchists. McKay can agree or disagree with this view, but it is wrong to imply that Marx opposed trade unions.
Wow! The editors think they refute my point by repeating it back at me… Rather than “miss” the only in the sentence that was the crux of the issue – Marx was explicitly distancing himself from the strategy later pursued by the Chicago Anarchists and explicitly linking it to Bakunin to show, indeed, “that trade unions were insufficient to achieve socialism, and that the working class also needed its own political party, a view that separated him from the anarchists.” This, to state the bloody obvious, also separated him from the Chicago anarchists as well!
Now, the level of double-think the ISR editors express here is shocking – they know that Marx favoured “political action” (electioneering) and they know that the Chicago Anarchists opposed this tactic. Yet they still proclaim that they were Marxists. Why? Because they advocated ideas that Marx himself opposed as anarchist! If this were the Original Series of Star Trek, an android uttering such words would instantly shut-down due to the damage caused to its logic circuits.
Needless to say, I did not “imply” Marx opposed trade unions, I quoted him on how “only” organising by trade unions was wrong – an idea he (correctly) attributes to Bakunin. Instead Marx urged – “as anyone familiar with his works knows” – the proletariat to organise also in a political party and take part in elections (“political action”). This was what the Chicago Anarchists rejected in favour of revolutionary unionism. Kropotkin put it well:
“Were not our Chicago Comrades right in despising politics, and saying the struggle against robbery must be carried on in the workshop and the street, by deeds not words?” (“The Chicago Anniversary,” Freedom, December 1891)
For both Marx and Engels, the Chicago Anarchists were wrong on all this. Indeed, Engels was clear on what socialists needed to do:
“the next step towards their deliverance: the formation of a political working-men’s party, with a platform of its own, and with the conquest of the Capitol and the White House for its goal.” (“The Labor Movement in America,” 435)
Note the words well – the conquest of institutions of the bourgeois State. This, of course, hardly fits in with the Lenin’s analysis of 1917 and so usually goes unmentioned (like many other similar quotes about Britain). I suppose it could be argued that Engels did not literally mean the Capitol and the White House but rather using them as an analogy for “seizing state power” but, well, you would to have an iron-will to mutter that with a straight-face. No, Engels is being clear – he argued that workers in America, as elsewhere, needed to vote and send their candidates into parliament in order to form a socialist government (which then would smash the state machine and replace it with one more suitable to secure its rule – which Engels, of course, equated to rule by the working class itself). As Engels put it:
“the new American party, like all political parties everywhere, by the very fact of its formation aspires to the conquest of political power” (437)
This would then be used to nationalise the means of production in the hands of the State (rather than socialise in the hands of the workers), a position Adolph Fischer critiqued in the book whose title escaped the editors’ memories:
“As to the distribution of products, a free exchange between the organizations of productions without profit-mongery would take place. Machinery and the means of production in general would be the common servant, and the products certainly the common property of the whole of the people. In what respect do the social-democrats differ from the anarchists? The state-socialists do not seek the abolition of the, state, but they advocate the centralization of the means of production in the hands of the government; in other words, they want the government to be the controller of industry. Now, a socialist who is not a state-socialist must necessarily be an anarchist. It is utterly ridiculous for men like Dr. Aveling to state that they are neither state-socialists nor anarchists. Dr. Aveling has to be either one or the other.” (Anarchism, 79)
So anarchists and Marxists agree – and agreed in 1868 as in 1886 – on the need for “a class-conscious movement of workers prepared to abolish private property along with the forms of government that sanctioned and protected it.” The difference is that anarchists recognise that retaining some form of government would mean turning private property into state property and so replacing private capitalism by state-capitalism.
I should also note that Dr. Aveling refers to Edward Aveling, partner of Karl Marx’s daughter Eleanor Marx, with whom he wrote an article which stated “we are not Anarchists, but are opposed to Anarchism, lies in the fact that our position of antagonism to the teachings of Anarchism, strengthens our position in asking justice for the condemned men.” (“The Chicago Anarchists,” To-day, November 1887). So these two leading Marxists, like Engels himself, did not consider the Haymarket Martyrs as anything other than anarchists.
Perhaps the ISR Editors would say that Marxism is not “State Socialism” – Leninists often do (while also arguing for nationalisation!). Yet the Communist Manifesto (in the part Parsons did not include in his book with the difficult to remember title) was pretty clear on this:
“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 . . . Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly . . . Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State . . . 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 . . . Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture” (Chapter II)
In 1847 it was a case 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.” In 1887 Engels was unambiguous: “the conquest of the Capitol and the White House . . . like all political parties . . . [it] aspires to the conquest of political power.” Which was precisely what the Chicago Anarchists rejected…
Also, compare this state-capitalist (or state as sole capitalist) perspective with the one the Chicago Anarchists raised. First, from the Pittsburgh Manifesto:
“Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative organization of production . . . Free exchange of equivalent; products by and between the productive organizations without commerce and profit-mongery . . . Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between the autonomous (independent) communes and associations, resting on a federalistic basis.” (quoted by Fischer, Anarchism, 78)
It is, of course, the last point (the sixth) which shows its libertarian nature – Marxists are not keen on federalism (to say the least). Likewise, its comments on co-operative productive organisations points to workers’ control, not state control as in the Communist Manifesto (significantly, there is no mention of workers’ management in that – unlike Proudhon’s 1848 manifesto). Here is Johann Most:
“In order to proceed thoroughly in the economic sense, all lands and so-called real estate, with everything upon it, as well as all movable capital will be declared the property of the respective communes . . . The immediate organization of the workers according to the different branches of trade, and of placing at their disposal the factories, machines, raw materials, etc., etc., for co-operative production, will form the basis of the new society. The Commune . . . enters into contracts with individual workers associations . . . Free society consists of autonomous, i.e., independent Communes. A network of federations, the result of freely made social contracts, and not of authoritative government or guardianship, surrounds them all. Common affairs are attended to in accordance with free deliberation and judgement by the interested Communes or associations.” (The Beast of Property)
Again, this echoes Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin and not Marx – federalism, contracts, independent communes and workers’ associations are not the ideas associated with Marxism.
There is one aspect of Most’s work which is not libertarian, namely its pointless and silly bloodthirstiness – Bakunin and Kropotkin were always clear that violence was a necessary evil and the revolution aimed as the destruction of social relationships and not individuals. It is a shame that he mars a useful pamphlet with such silly, misleading and counter-productive rhetoric (which is why I decided not to put it into A Libertarian Reader, regardless of its other merits). The ironic thing is that many, the ISR Editors and Green included I am sure, will think that this violent rhetoric is the “anarchist” bit of the work when, in fact, you would be hard pressed to find it in Bakunin and Kropotkin – as noted, both recognised that violence was a necessary part of any revolution but one to minimise and definitely not one to glorify. This is not to say violent rhetoric is alien to the movement but that it is not a core aspect of it – regardless of claims otherwise (always remember that while the Chicago anarchists killed no one, the Chicago state forces killed many strikers before and during the Eight-Hour strikes – urged on by the “respectable” capitalist press).
All in all, if you read the autobiographies of the Chicago Anarchists and Parsons’ book, it becomes very clear that they called themselves anarchists for a reason. They were well aware of what it stood for. To suggest, as Green did, that they remained Marxists is a travesty of the facts – and it is hardly “sectarianism” to point it out (yet again!).
Now the Chicago Anarchists were not the last to move from Marx to Bakunin. Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis who played a key role in the Dutch movement made similar journey. No one tries – as far as I am aware – to claim him as a Marxist. Sadly, very little has been published in English by him. I have come across Part I and Part II of Socialism in Danger (1895), although on JSTOR so access may be limited. Some material appears in the London Liberty, and I have included an article in A Libertarian Reader (which seems to be in publishing hell just now). He was originally a Marxist, the person Marx wrote to in 1881 to say of the Paris Commune:
“Apart from the fact that this was merely the rising of a city under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no way socialist, nor could it be. With a modicum of common sense, however, it could have reached a compromise with Versailles useful to the whole mass of the people – the only thing that could have been reached at the time”
He got elected to Parliament and saw the erosion of socialist principles first-hand as the socialist party grew, finally rejecting “political action” in favour of anti-parliamentarianism. Much later, Anton Pannekoek, took a similar path during and after the First World War and he, like other council communists, were labelled “semi-anarchist elements” by Lenin in 1921 while Trotsky wrote in 1931:
“As I can gather from your letter, you are also opponents of work in the [social democratic] trade unions and participation in parliament. If that is the case, then we are separated by an abyss from one another. I am a Marxist, not a Bakuninist.”
Presumably this is done because the council communists explicitly rejected Bolshevism (eventually) while the Chicago Anarchists died long before the grim reality of Leninism in power existed. Still, it is interesting to note how identical tactics of anti-parliamentarianism and building revolutionary unions get you labelled “Bakuninist” and anarchists by Leninists depending on which century you are in…
Finally, I should note that council-communist Gorter wrote that “[t]he difference between [Ferdinand Nieuwenhuis] and us is that we are for revolutionary methods in a time of revolution, while he advocated them in a completely different period.” (quoted by Serge Bricianer, Pannekoek and the Workers’ Councils, 65) This suggests an unwillingness to recognise that reformist tactics in non-revolutionary periods do not produce revolutionary periods – these develop in spite of, rather than because of, the tactics used. Worse, when these do develop, the institutions and associated bureaucracies produced by the use of the Marx-Engels approved tactics (“political action”) hinder its development – as shown by the dead-weight of German Social Democratic Parties and Unions in the post-war revolutionary situation which saw the rise of the council communists along with a growth in anarcho-syndicalism. However, I’m not that surprised by Gorter’s comments as Marxists – even the most radical – cannot seem to wean themselves off of the Marx Myth.
This is seen by the “completely different period” comment – this is the Marxist “get out of jail free” card. Lenin utilised it in 1914 in order to justify his opposition to both sides of the Imperialist conflict in the face of the leadership of German Social-Democrats quoting Marx and Engels on the need to take sides, to defend the fatherland against foreign states. His solution was both brilliant and stupid. Yes, he said, Marx and Engels did say all those things – but we are now in the age of imperialism and so will they were right then, they are wrong now… He did take some time trying to specify when this new age arose and after a few missteps concluded (by a wonderful coincidence) that it was the second after Engels last breath… Of course, it would be churlish to note that this new era was noticed only when the inevitable results of the tactics Marx recommended – and Bakunin warned against – became so obvious that even Lenin could not deny them.
Its first use, as far as I can tell, was by Rosa Luxemburg’s articles on the General Strike penned after its successful use in the Russian Revolution of 1905. Like many on the left of Social Democracy, she was keen to see its use adopted by the party – the problem was that Engels had proclaimed against the General Strike in 1873 in his “The Bakuninists at work.” Luckily, Engels had distorted the anarchist position which gave her some wiggle-room (see AFAQ) but she used the “times have changed” argument too – yes, back then the proletariat had just arisen but now capitalism had developed further and now the general strike was no longer “general nonsense.” Hence Engels could be both right and wrong at the same time… Anarchists, of course, noted the obvious in 1905 and had no need for such revisionism:
“the workers’ Council . . . had been appointed by the workers themselves – just like the insurrectional Commune of 10 August 1792 – and an executive of eight members had been taken from their amidst . . . the 300,000 workers of St. Petersburg are divided into groups of 500, and each group appoints a delegate. This very much reminds us of the Central Committee which preceded the Paris Commune of 1871, and it is certain that workers across the country should organise on this model. In any case, these councils represent the revolutionary strength of the working class . . . Let it not then be said that the workers of the Latin nations, by preaching the general strike and direct action, have taken the wrong path. The Russian working people, by applying these for themselves, have proven that their brothers in the West were perfectly right.” (Peter Kropotkin, “Direct Action and the General Strike in Russia,” Les Temps Nouveaux, 2 December 1905
However, I have went somewhat off the subject… Tucker ended his article on Marx with these words:
“There is much, very much that can be truly said in honor of Karl Marx. Let us be satisfied with that, then, and not attempt to magnify his grandeur by denying, belittling, or ignoring the services of men greater than he.” (481)
It should go without saying that influenced by and being a follower of someone is not the same thing. Bakunin, like the Chicago Anarchists praised Marx’s economic analysis and his materialism – but he was hardly a Marxist! Why Leninists seek to claim (certain) anarchists for (their version of) Marxism annoys me. Yet the fact they try shows how they so often lie by omission – after all, the evidence is overwhelming that the Chicago Anarchists rejected a key aspect of Marxism and embraced a position Marx himself (like Trotsky later) associated with Bakunin – a tactic (“political action”) which Engels himself reiterated in 1887 on an article on the American Labour movement! As such, the editors of ISR show not only a terrible ignorance of anarchism but – sadly – of Marxism as well.
Perhaps you can forgive Green for his mistake but I don’t, as any historian needs to understand the intellectual context he is discussing and he clearly is projecting backwards the mainstream assumptions of now as regards anarchism and socialism onto that era). However, you cannot forgive self-proclaimed Marxists for so doing – although, the reasons why they did are all too obvious.
Until I blog again, be seeing you…
Before the Storm
(Freedom, December 1888)
A speech delivered by P. Kropotkine at the meeting held at South Place, November 29, to bid farewell to Mrs. Parsons.
I think I cannot address better farewell words to our friend Mrs. Parsons than to ask her to transmit to our American friends the impression under which we, the advanced parties of the Socialist movement, are now living in Europe.
When Arthur Young, the great English agriculturist, was travelling France, exactly one hundred years ago, on the eve of the great Revolution, he often heard misery-stricken peasant-women saying, “Something will happen some time very soon to improve our condition. What it may be we don’t know, but something will happen.” Exactly the same feeling exists now all over Europe. If our friend had had the time to go over to the Continent, or to travel in this country, she would have heard the same feeling continually expressed among the sufferers from the present system. Everybody expresses it in France and Spain, very many in Italy, many in Germany, Austria, and this country, and almost everybody – peasants and educated men as well – in my mother country Russia.
And the richer classes know that. They also frankly recognise in private that something is going to happen, that great changes are pending. In France they openly recognize it in the press. “Something will happen; it cannot last as it is” – such is the opinion growing all over the civilised nations of Europe amidst the poorer and the richer classes alike.
Now, the student of human societies will understand what that growing feeling means. As long as there is in the masses mere discontent, that feeling can last for years and years, without being manifested otherwise than by individual acts of revolt. But when the feeling of discontent becomes associated with hopes of a near change, then the change must come; the revolt of the masses is near at hand.
What will be this “something” nobody can foretell. It may be the Communist Commune in some larger cities of France. It may be the Federative Republic and the Commune in Spain and Italy, and the Unitarian Democratic Republic in Germany. It most probably will be a peasants’ outbreak in Russia and a consequent abolition of absolute rule there. It may be land nationalisation in this country, or some wider attempt at social reorganisation.
But, whatever it may be, tell to our American friends that two ideas are sure to come out of the change. One of them will be a very wide extension of Home Rule, and, in the more advanced countries, a disintegration, a disjunction of the present governments, so as to take from their hands the numberless functions which they have concentrated now. More free understanding, more free association for achieving the ends now monopolised by the municipalities and the parliaments are sure to come out of the change. The centralised governments which gather in their hands all functions of human life – the defence of society, its education, its economical life, and so on – have been rendered an impossibility; disintegration of those functions must follow both in the state and the free commune.
And the other idea which is sure to come out of the change, will be the disappearance of many a monopoly, the socialisation of, at least, the first necessaries of life and production.
Two grand ideas which will revolutionise the whole life of our present society.
Now as to the question how this change will occur, we cannot answer it. It will not depend upon us; it will depend upon the privileged classes. If they understand the necessity of the change, and make timely and substantial concessions, and do not conspire to overthrow the work of the revolution as they did a hundred years ago in France, then civil war may be avoided. If not, it will break out.
The masses will not insist on civil war, but they will not be satisfied with mere sham reforms. They will fight, if necessary, in order to obtain substantial changes.
Which of the two courses will events take? We cannot foretell. But, we must say that the lessons now given to the masses by their educated rulers are working precisely in the direction of preparing war. These rulers teach us cold contempt and disdain of humanity. To speak of humanity, to preach loftier ideas, is considered by them as wicked sentimentalism.
The other day the President of the Bristol Association was reviewing the recent achievements of engineering. Do you think he dwelt upon the St. Gothard tunnel, the canal of Panama, or the proposed tunnel across the Channel? No, he became really eloquent just when he began to speak of the art of killing men. He spoke without disgust, nay, with the enthusiasm of an artist, of a gun which could be put at Richmond and so pointed as to throw shells, weighing 380 pounds, and charged with dynamite, into a space 200 yards square around the Royal Exchange, where shells would be “vomiting fire and scattering their walls in hundreds of pieces with terrific violence,” thus killing the passers by.
What a grand idea! what a grand lesson to gloat over the possibility of throwing these hundreds of pounds of dynamite from a distance of twelve miles into the midst of the crowd of men, women and children! But, such are the lessons given by the upper classes. “No sentimentalism in warfare,” they say; “cold contempt for human life!”
“If you can, bombard peaceful cities,” so they taught us during the last naval maneuvres. “Vomit death amidst the crowds and into the houses. No matter if you kill women and children. No sentimentalism in warfare!”
Bombard Alexandria, if by this means you can get possession of a new market! Such are the lessons given by the upper classes.
Again, suppose a country, like Ireland, longs for Home Rule. Home Rule for Ireland menaces the interests of Birmingham manufacturers, of English landlords, and, especially, of the London money-lenders and the English insurance companies to whom the mortgaged lands of Ireland really belong. Therefore the ruling classes throw the advocates of Home Rule into prison, turn the peasants who have made the soil out of their houses into the mud and snow of the road, men, women and children; and, when it serves their purpose drive them to despair, provoke an insurrection and then crush it in blood! Such are again the lessons we are taught by the upper classes.
And if a workers’ movement menaces the interests of the rich, as it did at Chicago, slaughter the workers, pick out a few energetic men and hang them without much caring what is the truth about the crimes imputed to them; hang them to terrorise the masses!
Such are the lessons given by the upper classes.
Well, let us hope that the workers will be better than their teachers. Let us hope that the numbers of rebels will be so great and important and their leading ideas exercise so powerful an effect, that they will be strong enough not to resort to the wicked means now resorted to by a ruling minority, which knows that its days are already numbered. Strength, force, can be generous; wicked feebleness never.
Such are the conditions in Europe.
And now, dear friend, tell to our American comrades that their heroes did not die in vain.
There is not a single city worth naming in Spain where the bloody anniversary was not commemorated by enthusiastic crowds of workers. Not one in Italy. Not one in Germany where the names of Parsons, Spies, Engel, Schwab, Fischer, Lingg, Neebe and Fielden were not invoked by workers who met in small groups, as they were not allowed to hold big meetings.
The commemoration of the Chicago martyrs has almost acquired the same importance as the commemoration of the Paris Commune.
Many have already died for the grand cause of Freedom, but none of the martyrs of Freedom have been so enthusiastically adopted by the workers as their martyrs. And I will tell you why.
The workmen know that our Chicago brethren were thoroughly honest. Not one single black spot could be detected in their lives, even by their enemies. Not one single black spot! Mark that, young men and women who come to join the Socialist movement. The masses are honest and they ask the same from those who come to help them in their work. While a black past goes for nothing in the ranks of the politicians, the workers ask from their combatants to be pure of any reproach, to live in accordance with the grand principles they are preaching.
They were honest all their lives through, these martyrs of the labour cause, and once they had joined the Anarchist movement, they gave themselves to it, not by halves, but entirely, body and heart together.
And – they had no ambition. They were Anarchists and understood when they became Socialists, that it was not that they might climb themselves upon the shoulders of their fellow-workers. They did not ask from the masses a place in Parliament, in a Municipality, or on a School Board. They sought no power over the others, no place in the ranks of the ruling classes. They asked nothing but the right to fight in the ranks, at the post of danger. And there they died.
Only such men could die as they have died, without making the slightest concession to the enemy, loudly proclaiming their Anarchist principles before the judges who said that Anarchy is on trial, amidst the lawyers who whispered: “Renounce Anarchy, and you will be saved.”
They proclaimed their principles during the terrible year spent on the threshold of death; they proclaimed them on the scaffold, and they hailed the day on which they died for those principles as the happiest of their lives.
Such men can inspire the generations to come with the noblest feelings. And so they do, and will do. The idea which lives in such men will never die – it will conquer.