I have been very busy of late, hence the lack of blogging. I had talks in Glasgow and Edinburgh prepare and do. I had a (long) introduction to the new PM Press edition of Voline’s The Unknown Revolution to write (30, 000 words). I’ve suggested a book idea to Freedom Press. I also had a few Proudhon related things to do. Finally, a “new” Kropotkin article.

The book idea is one I’m excited about, as it is a collection of George Barrett’s pamphlets and articles/reports for Freedom. Barrett is one of the lesser known anarchists, who died at just 29 (due to TB caught while outside speaking). He was active between 1908 and 1917 (when he died) and was instrumental in forming the 1910s Glasgow Anarchist Group. He is best known for the pamphlets The Anarchist Revolution and Objections to Anarchism, but there are quite a few articles and reports by him in Freedom between 1910 and 1914 which are also of interest. So I’ve collected them, proof-read and annotated them and combined them with his three pamphlets, added an introduction and passed on to Freedom Press. We will see what they say.

It would be nice to get it out this year, for it is the 130^th anniversary of Barrett’s birth and it would be good to mark it and his contributions to the movement he died for. It should be entitled The Anarchist Revolution and other writings, but we shall see.

I’ve also posted couple of reviews and an article.

A new collection of works by individualist-turned-Bolshevik, Victor Serge entitled Anarchists Never Surrender. This is of note because it mostly contains his writings when he was a leading French individualist (not the American kind). The elitism of his Bolshevik years can be seen as a logical development of his elitism of his individualist-anarchist years before the First World War.

The other review is Private Government, an interesting but frustrating book. It discusses the authoritarian nature of the workplace well, but its conclusions are a reformist fudge. It raises arguments libertarians have been raising since 1840… and the only “libertarians” mentioned are the propertarians… Still, probably worth borrowing from the library if you need evidence for libertarian critiques of factory fascism and office oligarchy.

The article is Ursula Le Guin and Utopia, writing to mark her death and familiar to readers of my blog as it is a combination of two recent ones – one after her death, the other a few months back on The Dispossessed. The world is a sadder place without her – but her works remain. This and the Private Government review appear in the latest Anarcho-Syndicalist Review.

I’ve translated the conclusion of Proudhon’s System of Economic Contradictions and will be posted it shortly. Suffice to say, very interesting stuff – his discussion on his methodology shows beyond doubt Marx’s proclamation of his idealism is nonsense, for example. I think my background project will be to translate the rest of volume 2. Also, I have restarted the Property is Theft! blog, prompted by a terrible “review essay” in the latest Anarchist Studies. I’ve also posted two Proudhon letters (written just after the 1848 broke out) from Property is Theft! along with my critique of the essay.

Working on the Voline introduction has made me look again at the various Bolshevik Oppositions (which is discussed in an appendix of An Anarchist FAQ). So I’ll probably revised that next – in a general attempt to keep AFAQ on the going beyond infrequent blog posts. But I also agreed to do an introduction to PM Press’s new edition of Kropotkin’s Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow. Still not quite worked out what I want to say for that yet. So, busy for the foreseeable future.

Finally, at the end of this blog is a “new” Kropotkin article. This was published anonymously in Freedom in 1896, but identified as Kropotkin’s by Max Nettlau (via his archive in the IISH). I should note it covers similar issues and presents similar examples as an article definitely by Kropotkin I’ve recently translated from Les Temps Nouveaux from 1895, so I’m confident that Nettlau is right. It is of note given what I’m about to discuss, given Kropotkin discusses the labour movement and how this is a key field for anarchist activism.

Enough news, onto the main point of this blog.

One blog I read occasionally has a entry entitled “Not-voting is not revolutionary,” to which I can only reply that voting is not revolutionary – particularly given that the Labour party has never been a revolutionary socialist party. At least with social democracy there was a period when it had revolutionary rhetoric – but that just hide a deeply reformist practice.

And, yes, not voting need not be revolutionary – however, our blogger proclaims:

‘It’s profoundly annoying that so many people keep repeating this kind of ludicrous appeal for everyone to "stop voting" based on the idea that revolutionary political change can be achieved through a vague hope that the powers that be will suddenly take notice if we all begin protesting against them by … err … doing nothing.’

I guess it is easier to misrepresent a position that critique it. Anarchists have never suggested not-voting was sufficient. The only people who considered voting as the be-all and end-all of activity were not anarchists, they were Marxists and other “political action” radicals. All too often they were the ones to proclaim that voting was the sole action and so direct action should never be utilised – particularly as this may harm the electoral chances of the party’s candidates.

So the blog post is a long discussion of a straw man – the whole point of the “don’t vote” campaign is to undermine apathy – the apathy usually promoted by electioneering! – by arguing that only direct action can really change things. Our blogger ends:

“If we want serious political change we need to educate ourselves, articulate it, demand it, fight for it.”

Quite – so why only do this every four years during elections? But he seems aware of the limitations of the strategy he advocates:

“Sticking a bit of paper in a box every few years is extremely unlikely to lead to revolutionary change, but it can help to ensure that things aren’t quite as bad as they could be while we build solidarity and take the direct action that is needed to promote the actual changes that we want to see.”

If history is anything to go by, “extremely unlikely” is an understatement! Note the transformation in aspirations. Back in the 1870s, Marx was arguing for voting to produce an actual revolution (see section H.3.10 of An Anarchist FAQ). Now we are being urged to vote simply because “it can help to ensure that things aren’t quite as bad as they could be.” How the mighty have fallen!

And note that the stress is on non-parliamentarian forms of struggles – but why do we need them if we can vote for someone to act for us? Look at what has happened since the last election – nothing. We had a mass increase in political involvement – with no actual increase in political action. Why? Because people are waiting for the next election and Labour’s hoped for victory…

Meanwhile, the Tories are busy making things as bad as they can be… with just the fine words of Corbyn to deter them! Would Theresa May be so willing to launch bombs if she knew she would face a general strike? Deeds not words, after all, is what won the vote – and shows what is needed even after winning it…

Sadly, our blogger does not really want to discover the actual arguments of the position he attacks:

“If anyone thinks I’m wrong about not-voting doing nothing more than transferring more political power to those who do vote, I’d really like to see someone attempt to explain the exact mechanism by which an individual not-voting supposedly achieves revolutionary political change.”

May I suggest section J of An Anarchist FAQ? It has only been around for twenty-odd years and that discusses why anarchists and others argue against electioneering – and the alternative. That the blogger talks about “individual non-voting” yet the whole point is that we move away from the individualised and atomised process by which an individual puts a cross on a bit of paper to collective direct action and self-help.

Now, I do not think it that important whether people vote or not – the issue is not whether you put a cross on a bit of paper every four years or not. It is what you do the rest of the time. But it seems pretty clear that electioneering undermines collective struggle – for it places the emphasis and hopes for change on politicians, not yourself and your fellow workers. And that is what anarchist anti-election campaigns seek to undermine.

Looking back at the debates of the First International, I think that some kind of social democratic party was inevitable – utilising the ballot for reforms can appeal to people. I think that the key problem was – and we are still living with its legacy – is that Marx and Engels managed to portray this as a revolutionary activity. This built massive illusions – which we are still living with in terms of legacy – for Bakunin was right, it could only produce a reformist practice.

The real issue then, as now, is whether we build a militant union movement (one embedded in the community) which is focused on anti-parliamentary forms of struggle or whether we build a reformist party aiming to tinker with the system. The two are not mutually exclusive – for members and voters of the party can take part in strikes and protests while members of such a union movement could vote for the reformist party, for it is what you do outwith the ritualistic four year electoral frenzy that really matters. Marx and Engels blurred the issue by suggesting that voting was revolutionary – and so diverted energy into a dead-end, for these parties could only be (and eventually did become) reformist.

Needless to say, Marxists still distort anarchist views. I saw one book state in all seriousness that Bakunin opposed all forms of organisation! But, given that the first publication Marxist book – The Poverty of Philosophy – is full of distortions, perhaps it is the case that the Marxist project is simply tainted at source? This does not mean Marx did not have useful insights into, say, the dynamics of capitalism, just that Marxism as an ideology is flawed.

But then, being an anarchist, I would say that. But then, the history of the labour movement since 1847 has been one long series of confirmations of the anarchist critique of Marxism…

Not that that seems to matter, of course!

And, at last, here is the Kropotkin article. Until I blog again, be seeing you.

The Trade Union Congress

Peter Kropotkin

(Freedom, October 1896)

The last Trade Union Congress, which was held during the month past, at Edinburgh, offers a new departure, to which it is essential to draw the attention of all thinking Socialists.

In its routine business, the Congress has not departed much from its predecessors. It has entrusted its Parliamentary Committee to force through Parliament laws relative to the supervision of mines and factories. It has admonished the Government for giving its orders to such firms as do not pay Trade Union wages, and urged that that scandal should cease. But it has refused admission to the Congress to the representatives of three papers which do not pay Trade-union wages. (why are not these papers named?).

The discussion of different technical points of different industries was in all respects highly instructive. Thus, to mention one point only, we learn that out of the 300,000, or so, men and children employed in the mines – not only one thousand, and more, are killed every year, but that also considerably more than a hundred thousand are wounded every year by various accidents. The accuracy of this authoritative statement evidently cannot be doubted, and it goes far to show the greediness of the capitalists.

The same misunderstandings as last year took place concerning the so-called Socialist resolution. It is well known that although most trade-unionists do not extend their demands farther than a demand for “fair wages,” there is amongst them a growing feeling to the effect that the control of the whole of every industrial concern ought to be in the hands of the workers themselves. And there is a steadily growing majority of workers in Britain who are more and more in touch with Socialist ideas, and who simply and plainly wish that the mines and the factories should be socialised, in one way or another, and be managed and owned by the workers. Socialism makes its way in the Trade Unions as everywhere, and although the majority of the workers do not yet rely upon the possibility of such socialisation, very few among them would be opposed to it on principle.

But as Socialism has always been advocated among them in its State’s centralised form, and as all past history of the Unions brings them to distrust the State – it is evident that the unionists hesitate to commit themselves to such resolutions, in which Social Democrats embody, or mean to embody, their ideal of “armies of workers” under State management. The hackneyed example of the State’s arrangement of the Post Office does not appear to their sound minds as an ideal of industrial organisation.

Consequently, the so-called Socialist resolution is always met with a certain opposition, and accepted half-heartedly, as an imperfect expression of the Unionists’ aspirations. So it was also at the last Congress, at which more than three-fourths of the delegates voted some sort of Socialist resolution, but one-fourth opposed it.

And now comes the two points in which the Congress departed from its previous routine.

Owing to the presence of two American and one German delegates, the Edinburgh Congress made a first step towards assuming an international character.

Two delegates of the American Federation of Labour were received with the heartiest greetings; and although they limited themselves to reading at the Congress reports on the general conditions of labour in the States, it is evident that the questions of the International Federation of Labour Unions and of international strikes must have been discussed between the American and the British Unionists.

We heartily greet the appearance of other unionists than British at the British Congress. The last International Labour and Socialist Congress has proved now little interest in their economic affairs and economic struggles the workers can expect to find at Congresses at which Social Democrats are numerous. All the hard struggles by means of which the Trade Unions of this country have constituted their power, ameliorated the conditions of labour (so far as they could be ameliorated without expropriation), and conquered liberties for their unions and strikes – all these struggles do not interest the Social Democrats so long as they do not win seats in Parliaments. In fact, the French deputy, Jaurès, treated the English Unions as Westminster antiquities, and it is now evident that the intention of one section, at least, of the French Social Democracy was to substitute for the Labour Congresses, Congresses of the Social Democratic parliamentary representatives of all nations. At any rate, such movements as those which are now going on amongst the workers of the United States, England, Belgium and Germany, to constitute a Federation of all workers engaged in the shipping trade, or of all miners, and, we hope soon, of the textile trades as well, and the general strike which is brewing out of these movements, do not interest the French and German Social Democrats, who are inclined to look at such movements on the contrary, anything but friendly. Instance, the reception given to the General Strike resolution at the London Congress.

It is, therefore, absolutely necessary that the elements for new Labour Congresses, convoked by the Labour Organisations themselves, and not falling under the domination of political parties – Socialist or not – should be worked out. Most probably, not further than two years hence an International Labour Congress will have to be convoked, instead of the International Socialist and Labour Congress whose seat in 1899 is to be Germany, while everyone knows –the recent expulsion of Tom Mann only too well proves it – that no International Congress can be held in Germany. We greet, therefore, that first step towards the internationalisation of Trade Union Congresses which was made at Edinburgh.

Perhaps, we must mention also the presence of a German unionist delegate at the Edinburgh Congress. But this delegate only came to say that his unions were the true ones, while there are other labour unions in Germany which are not the true ones – probably because they keep apart from Social Democracy and do not contribute to the Social Democratic elections. Labour unions ought to beware of such delegates, who already divide the young labour movement in Germany into two parts – the orthodox and the unorthodox – not because the latter would not be serious enough in their struggle against capitalism, but because they do not join the Parliamentary Social Democratic movement.

An international union of labour organisations ought not to know such divisions. Capital is its enemy. Direct warfare against it – its weapons. Let others use other weapons, if they like; but do not prevent the labour unions from using their own. And don’t measure the orthodoxy of labour unions by their willingness to use other weapons than those of their own choice.

As to the second new venture of the Edinburgh Congress, it is, perhaps, of even still greater importance. For the first time Trade Unionists have joined hands with Co-operators.

It hardly need be said that the shameless behaviour of bosses in Glasgow and Edinburgh, some of whom boycotted the co-operators and even the sisters of those who were employed by the co-operators, was the last drop to bring about the alliance between the Unionist and the Co-operator; but that that alliance was preparing long since is self-evident.

The fact that the Manchester Wholesale Co-operative subscribed £3,000 to the Yorkshire miners strike fund, and opened a considerable credit to the local co-operative stores in the strike region, was a quite new move in the right direction in the history of the Co-operative movement.

True, that in the productive co-operative workshop. labour continues to be exploited for the benefit of the shareholders; and the small share of profits which it allotted to the workers is nothing but what every reasonable capitalist could do to consolidate his monopoly. True, that in some co-operative workshops even the trade union wages were not strictly adhered to. But the Socialist ideas penetrate into the co-operative movement as well. The great bulk of the buyers at co-operative stores, especially in the North, are workers; and, as such, they are forcibly brought to be members of their respective unions, which again must be brought more and more to understand the necessity of taking possession of the necessities for production. The Socialist ideal is thus bound to permeate both the unions and the co-operative organisations.

But if these two movements come to join hands (as was the ideal of Robert Owen and all the earliest Socialists), a new invincible force will be created.

And – what is still more important – that now so much asked for form of economic organisation of Society without Capital and State will be indicated by that union. While the State Socialist knows nothing to advocate but State property, State capitalism, and State management of industries, after the land, the mines, the factories, the railways, and so on, have been socialised, and sees in the Post Office and the railway the ideal of the future society – Life indicates another, far more reasonable and practical solution outside the State, by means of a direct agreement between the consumer and the producer.

That this union cannot be strong, and still less general, so long as the present monopoly in land, factories and capital continues to exist, is self-evident. That co-operation and unionism cannot shake off the yoke of monopoly merely by obtaining fair wages and making economies in the cost of living, is again self-evident.

But their union points out in which direction we must look for the economical organisation of Society when monopoly has been destroyed by the Social Revolution.

One word more. The resolutions of their Congresses are mere suggestions to the body of the workers. Are they less important for that?