Any attempt to understand anarchism without reference to class struggle would be akin to studying the life of a shark without reference to its teeth. Class struggle is a vital component of anarchism and any attempt to separate them denies not only the rich history and roots of anarchism but also leaves it useless and hollow, becoming no more than an extreme liberalism or “liberalism with a bomb under its arm” as many a grinning Trotskyist has remarked.
Anarchism with out the class struggle is left with neither a coherent analysis nor an agent, and indeed historically when anarchism has drifted from the class struggle it has tended towards nihilism and terrorism, as witnessed in “propaganda by deed” . A practice and theory that earned the anarchist a somewhat dubious image as bearded bomb thrower, as well as reducing the life expectancy of Kings across late 19th century Europe. It is worth pointing out that “propaganda by deed” did not abandon class struggle but rather attempted to act as a catalyst for it. Thus it didn’t reject a class analysis so much as it reflected the brutal suppression of the working class and its organisation’s, following the Paris Commune of 1871 and the lack of alternative courses of action. Indeed many of its advocates were very aware of the limits of such a strategy.
“Others decide that they wanted to defend the workers against the State, to demoralize the ruling class, and to create a revolutionary consciousness amongst the workers. They did not expect the acts themselves to overthrow capitalism or the State: assassinating a despot would not get rid of despotism. But as Alexander Berkman observed ‘terrorism was considered a means of avenging a popular wrong, inspiring fear in the enemy, and also calling attention to the evil against which the act of terror was directed.’”
In contemporary times this turn away from direct involvement in class struggle can be witnessed in the somewhat less deadly and indeed less coherent life style politics of many self proclaimed “anarchists”, this form of anarchism defines itself primarily through a counter culture of fashion and a distaste for all organisation. It believes that change stems from individual lifestyle choices therefore it advocates people attempt to remove themselves from capitalism, to drop out, in the words of the hippies. By simply arguing for a dropping out and focusing on individual lifestyle choices this current, easily walks into moralistic and elitist dead ends and overlooks the necessity for wider social change. Murray Bookchin scathingly attacks such lifestyle anarchists in the essay “Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm” as a merely reflecting the rampant individualism and self-narcissism that permeates much of today’s cultural landscape. It swaps workplace and community organising for self help psychology dressed up in the rhetoric of insurrection and the ego. Indeed, in the ego we see the real soul of lifestylist philosophy, the self of laissez faire individualism dressed up in muddled post modern new age pseudo Focaultian language.
“Their ideological pedigree is basically liberal, grounded in the myth of the fully autonomous individual whose claims to self-sovereignty are validated by axiomatic 'natural rights,' 'intrinsic worth,' or, on a more sophisticated level, an intuited Kantian transcendental ego that is generative of all knowable reality.”
So it seems that whilst in Spain 1936, anarchists called for the arming of the working class and workers control, today anarchists of the lifestyle variety call for the arming of desire and the dropping out of capitalism and mainstream society , demands and strategies which if not objectively reactionary are downright meaningless. Not surprisingly such shallow posturing lends itself to commodification and indeed modern capitalism is adept at selling such empty rebellion, from the hippies to the sex pistols, youthful angst and rebellion has become a rite of passage, which soon gives way to the real world and its regulations.
Although Bookchin’s essay is aimed squarely at showing the futility of lifestyle politics, this is not to dismiss the cultural and personal planes of struggle completely; indeed such a dimension is always necessary and indeed always present in any social struggle . But in the absence of and sometimes in direct opposition to a wider social movement these planes tend to become increasingly atomised and eventually assimilated into a “sophisticated and highly creative cultural order capable of handling contradictions and in the process making them ‘insouciant, but deliciously safe’” .
Such processes are evident in feminism and the gay rights movements, which have increasingly moved from issues of social justice in general, to narrow identity politics in which success is measured by the “Pink Pound”, gay celebrities, women in the boardroom and capitalism’s acceptance (read assimilation) of gay’s and women’s issues. Hence, Margaret Thatcher and the Spice Girls become feminist icons despite the fact they offer nothing to their “sisters” other than the aping of male competitiveness or a patronising ‘we’ve made it, so can you’ which seems of dubious relevance to a single mother on welfare. Meanwhile companies like Coca-Cola and Gap, renowned for their keen sense of social justice, sponsor Gay Pride marches.
Anarchism therefore has and continues to find it’s relevancy within the class struggle, therefore to grasp a truer picture of anarchism we must place it firmly in the context of that struggle. Anarchism is probably not the first philosophy that springs to mind when one hear the words class struggle, that award would no doubt be picked up by a tearful Marxism, who might possibly mumble something about the USSR before thanking it’s leading actor V.I. Lenin for holding back its true potential for all those years. Bad Oscar jokes aside, any attempt to examine class and class struggle from the mid 19th century without reference to Marxism would be a fruitless task. This is not to say that Marxism’s influence has always been a positive factor in the struggle for working class liberation rather that for good or bad it has had a major role in its development. Therefore, it makes sense that in order to grasp anarchism’s development we must study its relationship to Marxism, a relationship that runs deep not only in theory but in history.
Proudhon, Bakunin and Marx
Modern anarchism developed as a coherent philosophy from the 19th century on. Indeed it was Proudhon, the first political economist to question the sanctity of private property, who was first to declare himself an anarchist and answer the query “What is Property?” with “Property is theft!” . Proudhon’s contribution to political economy is often overlooked as it was superseded by Marx, however his influence on the young Marx was great, though Marx would famously go on to scathingly criticise Proudhon in his “The Poverty of Philosophy” (the title itself being a sly swipe at Proudhon’s “The Philosophy of Poverty”).
“Monsieur Proudhon has the misfortune of being peculiarly misunderstood in Europe. In France, he has the right to be a bad economist, because he is reputed to be a good German philosopher. In Germany, he has the right to be a bad philosopher because he is reputed to be one of the ablest French economists. Being both German and economists at the same time, we desire to protest against this double error.”
Yet such harsh criticism is belied by Marx’s earlier comments:
“Proudhon makes a critical investigation – of the foundation of political economy, private property. This is the great scientific progress he made, a progress which revolutionises political economy and first makes a real science of political economy possible. Proudhons’s treatise ‘Qu’est-ce que la propriete?’ is as important for modern political economy as Sieyes’s work ‘Qu’est ce que le tiers etat?’ for modern politics.”
In some way Marx’s changing opinion on the validity of Proudhon's work may be explained by the two men’s personal relationship which was rather frosty. Indeed Marx had invited Proudhon to join his international communist group just prior to the publication of “The Philosophy of Poverty” but Proudhon turned down the invite, viewing Marx as doctrinaire and his communism as authoritarian. Although personal differences play a major factor in Marx and Proudhon’s disagreements there were real political and philosophical differences between the two. Despite Proudhon being the “father of anarchism” and Marx obviously the father of “Marxism” the differences between the two often played out in such a way as to see Marx taking the historically anarchist stance and Proudhon taking the historically Marxist stance.
“Marx continued to attack Proudhon for advocating class collaboration and pro-scribing trade-union and parliamentary activity.”
The contradictions in Proudhon and Marx’s positions are made even more glaring by the fact that Marx explicitly endorses parliamentary activity and class collaboration in his most famous work “The Communist Manifesto”. Proudhon also opposed strikes for higher wages, believing that a rise in wages meant a rise in general prices, on this Marx disagreed and pointed out that
“Thus apart, from a few fluctuations, a general rise in wages will lead, not as M. Proudhon says, to a general increase in prices, but to a partial fall, that is, a fall in the current price of goods that are made chiefly with the help of machines”.
But Marx saw that behind the strike for higher wages lay the foundations for the development of class-consciousness. It is in this insight that Marx goes beyond the inhuman mechanical political economy that separates the economic, political and social into separate distinct categories. Marx outlines the development of the working classes organs of resistance and how they take on a more politicised nature.
“Large-scale industry concentrates in one place a crowd of people unknown to one another. Competition divides their interest. But the maintenance of wages, this common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought of resistance- combination. Thus combination always has a double aim, that of stopping competition among the workers, so that they can carry on general competition with the capitalist. If the first aim of resistance was merely the maintenance of wages, combinations, at first isolated, constitute themselves into groups as the capitalists in their turn unite for the purpose of repression, and in the face of always united capital, the maintenance becomes more necessary to them than that of wages. This is so true that English economists are amazed to see the workers sacrifice a good part of their wages in favour of associations, which in the eyes of these economists, are established solely in favour of wages. In this struggle-a veritable civil war-all the elements necessary for a coming battle unite and develop. Once it has reached this point, association takes on a political character.”
Here Marx’s analysis of how wage struggles take on a political nature comes very close to syndicalism (which will be discussed later) and indeed he is certainly more anarchistic than Proudhon on this issue.
However in one vital aspect Marx placed himself outside of the anarchist tendency, his assertion that the state can be seized and used as a weapon of the working class. However, Marx’s writings regarding the state are somewhat ambiguous and veer from anarchist, for example in the much of his early work, to extremely mechanical and statist, most obviously in “The Communist Manifesto”.
“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as a ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.”
Contrast that to these remarks in “Critical Remarks on the Article: ‘The King of Prussia and Social Reform”.
“The state ... will never see in 'the state and the system of society' the source of social maladies. Where political parties exist, each party sees the root of every evil in the fact that instead of itself an opposing party stands at the helm of the state. Even radical and revolutionary politicians seek the root of the evil not in the essential nature of the state but in a definite state form, which they wish to replace with a different state form.”
“The existence of the state and the existence of slavery are inseparable. The classical state and classical slavery-frank and open class oppositions-were not more closely forged together than the modern state and the modern world of haggling, hypocritical, Christian oppositions”.
Or this statement at the close of “The Poverty of Philosophy”
“Does this mean that after the fall of the old society there will be a new class domination culminating in a new political power? No.
The condition for the emancipation of the working class is the abolition of every class, just as the condition for the liberation of the third estate, of the bourgeois order, was the abolition of all estates and orders.”
It was in Marx’s confrontation with another famous anarchist that the issue of the state and centralisation came to a head and ultimately led to the split in the 1st International, and to the polarisation between Marxism and Anarchism. Whilst Proudhon’s idealist philosophy and social conservatism made rather easy pickings for Marx, he met a rather more robust opponent in Mikhail Bakunin. Like Marx, Bakunin had been deeply impressed by the atheism of Feuerbach and philosophically Bakunin embraced the core of Marx’s work. Bakunin had become an anarchist under the influence of Proudhon, however his philosophical background made him closer to Marx. Bakunin accepted Marx’s historical materialism and rejected Proudhon's idealism. Like Marx the stamp of Feuerbach was obvious as can be seen in the similarity of the two’s thoughts on religion.
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
This Marx’s sentiments are echoed in Bakunin’s assertion that religious beliefs are;
“An aberration of mind as a deep discontent at heart. They are the instinctive and passionate protest of the human being against the narrowness, the platitudes, the sorrows, and the shame of a wretched existence.”
Bakunin is asserting, as Marx did, that even false ideas have their roots in real material circumstances. This view runs counter to Proudhon’s idealism that saw injustice and inequality as an aberration of reason. Bakunin also rejected Proudhon’s static and mechanical view of human nature in favour of Marx’s dynamic and social dialectic. In a denouncement of individualist philosophies Bakunin takes issue with Rousseau’s famous battle cry “Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains” , insisting instead that “outside of society, not only would a human not be free, he would not even become genuinely human”.
Whilst Bakunin shared the core of Marx’s philosophy he was often at odds with Marx’s politics. In regards to organisation Bakunin favoured Federalism over Marx’s centralism, much as Proudhon had. Whilst Bakunin embraced collectivism over Proudhon’s mutualism, he rejected the centralised economy that Marx laid out in “The Communist Manifesto”. Instead of Marx’s centralised command economy and Proudhon’s mixture of the market and self-management, Bakunin wished to see a society, “organised from the bottom upwards, by the free association and federation of workers, in associations first, then in communes, region, nations, and finally in a great international and universal federation.”
In this vision of a future society Bakunin paved the way for revolutionary or anarcho-syndicalism, and indeed anarcho-syndicalism has been traditionally strongest in those countries that Bakunin had the largest influence, mainly Spain, Italy and France. Whilst for Bakunin the Paris Commune of 1871 had only strengthened his federalist and anti-state sentiments, it caused a major rethink within Marxist circles. Marx’s rather mechanical description of the working classes seizure of the state apparatus outlined in the “The Communist Manifesto” had been totally negated by the events in Paris, and Marx was forced to reassess his previous views on the “workers state”.
This change in position was laid out in Marx’s most libertarian essay “The Civil War In France” written just after the brutal suppression of the Paris Commune. At its core lies the assertion that the working class must smash the state apparatus and introduce its own forms of organisation.
“But the working class cannot simply lay hold to the ready made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes. The Centralised State power, with its ubiquitous organs of standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy and judicature-organs wrought after the plan of a systematic and hierarchic division of labour.”
Marx is also at pains to add that the Commune was not merely an attempt to resurrect the decentralist tendency of the middle class crushed by the 1789 revolution, but a step towards the creation of a new society which would abolish class rule.
“Thus, this new Commune, which breaks the modern State power, has been mistaken for a reproduction of the medieval Communes, which first preceded, and afterwards became the substratum of, that very State power. The Communal Constitution has been mistaken for an attempt to break up into a federation of small States, as dreamt of by Montesquieu and the Girondins”
Whilst it is clear that Marx has substantially changed his attitude regarding the state from that put forward in much of his other works, how much he actually believed in what he was writing and how much of it was a fickle attempt to ride on the coat tails of the Communes popular support, has been a source of much debate.
“The picture of a Commune in armed insurrection was so imposing that even the marxists, whose ideas the Paris revolution had utterly upset, had to bow before the actions of the Commune. They went further than that; in defiance of all logic and their known convictions they had to associate themselves with the Commune and identify with its principles and aspirations. It was a comic carnival game, but a necessary one. For such was the enthusiasm awakened by the Revolution that they would have been rejected and repudiated everywhere had they tried to retreat into the ivory tower of their dogma.”
Many anarchists also see historical parallels with Lenin’s most libertarian work “State and Revolution” in which Lenin reversed his past opposition to the Soviets, in an attempt to keep the Bolsheviks relevant to the workers and peasants and adopted the anarchist slogan of “All Power to the Soviets!”. As Gabriel Cohn-Bendit points out in “Obsolete Communism; The Left Wing Alternative” Lenin was originally deeply opposed to the soviets and in 1907 at the Fifth Congress of the Social Democratic Workers Party proposed and had passed a resolution condemning “independent workers’ organisation and the anarcho-syndicalist currents with in the proletariat” declaring “The participation of Social Democratic organisations in councils composed of delegates and workers deputies without distinction of party... or the creation of such councils, cannot be countenanced unless we can be sure that the party can benefit and that its interests are fully protected.”
Of course, it would be extremely harsh to judge Marx by the same standards of Lenin, after all Marx did not go onto wrest power from the Commune and set about neutering it. For all Marx’s faults and contradictions he resolutely defended the position that the “Emancipation of the working class must be carried out by the working class!” and was at pains to assert “I am not a Marxist!”. In fact Marx’s view of the state in “The Civil War in France” are really a return to his earlier writings such as “The Jewish Question” in which he argued that the state is a form of alienation brought about by the division of the private and the public.
Bakunin not only went beyond Marx in his critique of the state but also developed critiques of science and rationality well before Focault or post modernism became fashionable, although his criticism never degenerated into an embrace of the irrational, as much of what passes for post modernist does. Bakunin like Marx drank heavily from the fountain of the enlightenment wanting to further it rather than to smash it.
“Bakunin is not simplistically anti-reason or anti science, but is principally concerned with the authoritarian dangers of a scientific elite. Instead of science remaining the prerogative of a privileged few, he would like to see it spread amongst the masses so that it would represent the ‘collective consciousness’ of society.”
At a time when faith in scientific rationalism was at its height, as best illustrated in utilitarianism, such concerns stand as particularly perceptive, and stand up well in the light of events of the 20th century, in which ‘scientific’ rationalism has been used to justify many atrocious acts, from racial inequality to out right genocide. Bakunin also warned of the dangers of bureaucracy and his words are almost prophetic in light of the events in the Soviet Union.
“They are to take over the reins of government, because the ignorant people stands in need of proper tutelage: they will set up a single State Bank which is to concentrate into its hands the totality of commerce, industry, agriculture and even scientific output, while the mass of people is to be divided into two armies: the industrial and the agricultural, under the direct command of the State engineers who will make up a new, privileged erudite-political caste.”
The relationship between Bakunin, Proudhon and Marx is far too complex and contradictory to fit into a simple anarchist versus marxist analysis, as all three often held self-contradicting positions. Whilst Bakunin would seem to be the most consistent in his arguments, he too had his contradictions, namely his fondness for secretive and conspiratorial groups, which by their essence tend towards authoritarianism organising models. Also much of Bakunin’s insights were made possible by standing on the shoulders of Marx. Whilst Proudhon's federalist and anti-statist ideas put him in the anarchist camp his sexist, racist and his contradictory economics are at great odds with the anarchist tradition. Daniel Cohn-Bendit provides a simple but largely true overview of the relationship between the three:
“The history of ‘leftism’ is, in fact, the history of all that is truly revolutionary in the working class movement. Marx was to the left of Proudhon and Bakunin to the left of Marx.”
Marxist Leninism and the Bastardisation of Marx
As outlined above anarchism and marxism developed together during the mid 19th century and “supporters of Bakunin and Marx shared the same platform space in the First International, until the rupture of 1872 at the Hague” at which Bakunin was expelled and the headquarters moved to New York making it virtually impossible for anarchist delegates to attend. This split led to an increased polarisation between anarchist and “Marxist” currents within the working class movement eventually leading to an irreconcilable break with the advent of Marxist Leninism.
The Russian revolution and its tragic outcome would have a massive effect upon anarchist and marxist philosophies. On a superficial level the Russian revolution had proved the strength of Marxism and the inability of anarchists to intervene meaningfully in the class struggle. However to anarchists the Russian revolution vindicated their opposition to the seizure of state power. Bakunin’s prophecies about a new technical ruling class ring chillingly true, yet the lessons of the Russian revolution were not only negative. The workers, soldiers and peasants Soviets had been real democratic and functioning organs, the working class had shown that it could seize the means of production and go about forming a new society. The working classes had also shown themselves to be far more revolutionary than any vanguard in any central committee, and even Trotsky was forced to admit this. “The masses at the turning point were a hundred times to the left of the extreme left party.”
Of course, the Bolsheviks dressed themselves up in anarchist rhetoric, proclaimed their support for All Power to the Soviets! And then set about seizing the reigns of the movement. Bolshevism in its attempt to retain power at all costs would be responsible for the crudest bastardisations of Marx’s thought. Marx’s “dictatorship of the proletariat” (always a questionable term) would simply become a dictatorship over the proletariat, justified through a suspect reading of Marx’s historical materialism.
Bolshevism and its theoretical exponents in the Third International, set about turning Marx’s vast and often conflicting writings into a holy catechism. This “orthodox” Marxism mutated Marx’s writings from a critical analysis of capitalism and ideology into a total system for “understanding” the world.
The Bolsheviks were largely responsible for creating the determinist, inhuman and authoritarian Marxism that has overshadowed much of Marx’s real theoretical value. Marx was called upon to justify every twist and turn of the Communist Party and the Comintern. The brutal treatment of the working class in the Soviet Union was named “War Communism” and justified as necessary in order to expand the “forces of production”, which to the Bolsheviks was what determined the social relations. Through this selective reading of Marx’s historical materialism, communism is not the product of the working classes autonomous struggle against the alienating effects of wage labour or the state but rather becomes a grand drive to increase the forces of production. Marx of course would have had no time for such garbled nonsense, which makes inanimate objects the real driving force behind human history.
However alongside this “orthodox” Marxism has always been another tradition of Marxism, left communism or council communism, a tradition that has kept alive the critical and open nature of his thought, not just for academic purposes but for forwarding the working classes struggle for self liberation.
The Other Marxism
Rosa Luxemburg is probably the most famous of these Marxists. She opposed socialists supporting national liberationist struggles on the basis that they reinforce nationalism, and stunt the growth of a class analysis and internationalism. In doing so she opposed class collaboration and reaffirmed that “the working classes have no country.”
Luxemburg also upheld that the “action of the masses” would create socialism and not the decrees of any political party.
“In time we see appear on the scene and even more “legitimate” child of history – the Russian labor movement. For the first time, bases for the formation of a real “people’s will” are laid in Russian soil.
But here is the “ego” of the Russian revolutionary again! Pirouetting on its head, it once more proclaims itself to be the all-powerful director of history – this time with the title of His Excellency the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Russia.
The nimble acrobat fails to perceive that the only “subject” which merits today the role of director is the collective “ego” of the working class. The working class demands the right to make its mistakes and learn the dialectic of history.
Let us speak plainly. Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.”
She was also scathing about the autocratic and undemocratic path that the Bolshevik leadership was taking the revolution down.
“The remedy which Trotsky and Lenin have found, the elimination of democracy as such, is worse than the disease it is supposed to cure; for it stops up the very living source from which alone can come correction of all the innate shortcomings of social institutions.”
Whilst Rosa Luxemburg is probably the most famous of the anti-Leninist Marxists, and her criticisms of the limits of political vanguards and the dangers of nationalist contamination of class struggle are of great value and relevance, she did not develop these criticisms into a coherent alternative.
The Council communist and anarcho-syndicalist movements were however putting Rosa Luxemburg’s concerns into action, rejecting outright the role of a revolutionary party, in favour of structures based on immediate working class experiences of the class struggle. Organising on a workplace as well as community basis, these movements sought to radicalise the working class through there own struggles rather than passively following a party line. The organ of resistance was to be the local syndicate or council whereby the workers made their decisions directly without a bureaucracy.
“It has, therefore, a double purpose: 1. As the fighting organisation of the workers against the employers to enforce the demands of the workers for the safeguarding and raising of their standard of living; 2. As the school for the intellectual training of the workers to make them acquainted with the technical management of production and economic life in general so that when a revolutionary situation arises they will be capable of taking the socio-economic organism into their own hands and remarking it according to Socialist principles."
Council communism and Anarcho-syndicalism come the closest in reconciling anarchism and Marxism in practical class struggle even if they do have slightly varying theoretical roots.
“Anarcho-syndicalists and Council Communists were at this time almost indistinguishable. In fact they co-operated pretty closely; if you look at the literature on the reactions to the Spanish revolution, the anarchist revolution, the Council Communists were, like the anarcho-syndicalists, very positive.”
Whilst both Anarcho-syndicalism and Council Communism as mass movements were destroyed by war and fascism, they remain probably the richest marxist and anarchist currents, in practice and theory.
“It is precisely the more advanced form of capitalism, with its advanced technology, high productivity, and network of communication, which offers a material base for the establishment of a communism based on a system of workers' councils. The council idea is not a thing of the past, but the most realistic proposition for the establishment of a socialist society. Nothing which has evolved during the last decades has robbed it of its feasibility; on the contrary, it has merely substantiated the non-utopian character of the workers’ councils and the probability of the emergence of a truly communist society.”
The Future
Whilst anarchism and Marxism have had a very rocky relationship it is obvious that it has been one that has had a huge impact on their developments. From the early years of the First International, through the tragedy of the Russian revolution, to the farce of the Communist parties and their ideological gymnastics in service to Soviet foreign policy. However for many anarchists a rejection of official Marxist dogma became a rejection of Marx per se and sometimes the whole concept of class analysis. Anarchism may have gained a short burst of energy following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the “proclaimed end of history”, but such a boost may really be the kiss of death if it is dependent on anarchism’s rejection of class struggle. Now, over ten years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, class struggle is firmly back on the agenda, as the new world order has failed to deliver anything but the same militarism, economic crises, and despair to the vast majority of the worlds peoples. The choice for anarchism is clear, either continue as a fashionable life stylist and pseudo post modern philosophy, or embrace its class struggle roots fully and develop a real counter culture, one based on a social opposition to capitalism not a individualistic “dropping out”.
With the Soviet Union gone there is now a massive opening for a rethinking of the class struggle and Marx’s writings in particular. The anti capitalism movement has shown that history has not ended and globalisation is spreading not only neo-liberal economics but resistance and new forms of organising. The global nature of capitalism is more blatant than ever and as such the possibilities of a new international are ripe, a true internationalism, of autonomous working class resistance. The old national trade unions have shown their ineffectiveness not only at resisting local capital but at dealing with the increasingly globalised market, as witnessed in their ineffectual opposition to jobs being moved to cheaper labour markets.
But out of this void there will surely emerge new forms of resistance. Anarchism and Marxism, in the form of Anarcho-syndicalism and Council Communism, have much to offer this resistance, not as final words but as gripping preambles. So, as we start the 21st century it still holds true that the working class “has nothing to lose but its chains”.
Russian-language version of the article here:
http://revsoc.org/archives/4659
пятница, 27 августа 2010 г.
вторник, 24 августа 2010 г.
Strategy and struggle - anarcho-syndicalism in the 21st century
A pamphlet produced in January 2009 by Brighton Solidarity Federation as a clarification of the meaning of anarcho-syndicalism in the 21st century, and as a contribution to the debate over strategy and organisation.
Brighton SolFed
– Self Education Collective (2001)
Anarcho-syndicalism is a specific tendency within the wider workers’ movement. As a tendency, it has a history of its own dating back over a century. In contemporary discussions many - self-identified advocates and critics alike – take the tradition as it was 50, 70 or 100 years ago as definitive of the tradition as a whole. There is also the fact that the tradition is a plural one, and its core principles have allowed varied, sometimes conflicting practices at differing times in its history. The anarcho-syndicalism of the CNT of 1930 was not the same as the CNT of 1980. The anarcho-syndicalism of the Friends of Durruti was different yet again. As was that of the FORA. And so on.
What this underlines is the need to clarify exactly what anarcho-syndicalism means in practical terms in a 21st century context. That is the purpose of this pamphlet. This aim will be pursued by way of introducing the current industrial strategy of the Solidarity Federation (SF), with some historical context as well as theoretical clarification of the meaning of a ‘revolutionary union’, different organisational roles and the relationship between the form and content of class struggle. This theoretical clarification is solely for the purpose of informing contemporary practice, and not some mere intellectual exercise.
So we see anarcho-syndicalism as a living tradition that develops through a critical reflection on our experiences and adaptation to new conditions. It may well be the ideas presented here are not unique to any one tradition of the workers’ movement and may find resonance with those who do not identify as anarcho-syndicalists - if anything this is evidence of their validity. This pamphlet is written to contribute to new and more effective action, from which we can collectively bring about a better society more quickly; it is written in the spirit of anarcho-syndicalism.
CLASSICAL ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM
"Through the taking over of the management of all plants by the producers themselves under such form that the separate groups, plants, and branches of industry are independent members of the general economic organism and systematically carry on production and the distribution of the products (…) Theirs must be the task of freeing labour from all the fetters which economic exploitation has fastened on it."
- Rudolph Rocker (1938)
Anarcho-syndicalism emerged in the late 19th century from the libertarian wing of the workers’ movement. Stressing solidarity, direct action and workers’ self-management, it represented a turn to the labour movement and collective, class struggle in contrast to the concurrent tendency of individualistic ‘propaganda by the deed’ – assassinations and terrorist bombings – that had become popular with many anarchists following the massacre of the Paris Commune in 1871.
Classical syndicalists, including many anarcho-syndicalists sought to unite the working class into revolutionary unions. Like the ‘One Big Unionism’ of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) the goal was to build industrial unions until such a point as they could declare a revolutionary general strike as the prelude to social revolution. However, unlike the IWW on the one hand, and Marxists and social democrats on the other, anarcho-syndicalists rejected the separation of economic (trade union) and political (party) struggles.
They stressed that workers themselves should unite to fight for their interests whether at the point of production or elsewhere, not leave such struggles to the specialists of political parties or union officials or still less neglect political goals such as the overthrow of capital and the state in favour of purely economic organisation around wages and working hours. Furthermore they stressed that workers should retain control of their organisations through direct democratic means such as sovereign mass meetings and mandated, recallable delegates.
The goal of these unions - as suggested in the Rudolph Rocker quote above – was to expropriate the means of production and manage them democratically without bosses. As such, the dominant tendency saw building the union as ‘building the new society in the shell of the old.’ The same directly democratic structures created to fight the bosses would form the basic structure of a new society once the bosses were successfully expropriated.
Consequently, building the union was seen as one and the same as building both the new society and the social revolution that would bring it about. Class struggle became not just a question of (self-)organisation, but of building the organisation. As the union grew to a sufficient size and influence, strikes could be launched, culminating in the revolutionary general strike that would bring about libertarian communism. There was almost a blueprint for social revolution that simply needed to be implemented.
This approach appeared to be vindicated with the outbreak of the Spanish revolution in 1936 in which the anarcho-syndicalist CNT played a prominent role. In Barcelona, factories, public transport and other workplaces were taken over and self-managed by their workers. In the countryside land was collectivised and libertarian communism proclaimed. However the revolution ended, tragically, in defeat, but not before the paradoxical spectacle of the CNT providing anarchist ministers to the government while it ordered insurgent workers off the streets.
The experience of Spain led to many criticisms of classical anarcho-syndicalism in addition to those which had already been made during its development in the early 20th century. To these criticisms we will now turn.
CRITICISMS OF CLASSICAL ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM
"The modern proletarian class does not carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight..."
– Rosa Luxemburg (1918)
Criticisms have come from many quarters. We will focus here on four in particular which have relevance to developing anarcho-syndicalist practice as they share our goal of libertarian communism (unlike say, social democratic criticisms). Addressed in order of their severity, these four criticisms are: those which emerged from within - at the height of the Spanish revolution in the form of the Friends of Durruti group; those from the platformist tradition that grew out of the lessons of the 1917 anarchist revolution in the Ukraine; those which came from the council communist tendency in the workers’ movement, and in particular Rosa Luxemburg; and finally those which, for want of a better term emanate from the contemporary ‘ultra-left’ and Gilles Dauvé in particular.
The Friends of Durruti’s criticisms
The Friends of Durruti (FoD) were a group of rank-and-file CNT militants during the Spanish revolution in 1936. Their main criticism was that having defeated the army and taken the streets and workplaces, the CNT didn’t know where to go. “The CNT did not know how to live up to its role. It did not want to push ahead with the revolution with all of its consequences (…) it behaved like a minority group, even though it had a majority in the streets.” The CNT simply started self-managing the workplaces and collaborating with the remnants of the state, rather than decisively smashing the state and moving towards libertarian communism. For the FoD, the CNT lacked two things: “a program, and rifles.”
Platformist criticisms
In many ways platformist criticisms are similar to those of the FoD; whilst supporting the structures of anarcho-syndicalist unions they stress the need for a specific libertarian communist organisation to argue for a communist program within such mass organisations. This organisation would be a single ‘general union of anarchists’ and be founded on four organisational principles; theoretical unity, tactical unity, collective responsibility and federalism.
In contrast to classical anarcho-syndicalism, contemporary platformism seeks not to build mass organisations, but to insert into them and influence them in an anarchist direction. For example the position paper on trade unions by the influential platformist Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) states that “no matter how conservative they can become, it does not alter the fact that they are the most important mass organisations of the working class (…) activity within them is an extremely important ongoing activity.” Consequently, they advocate reforming the existing Trade Unions towards anarcho-syndicalist structures of mandated recallable delegates, rank-and-file control etc.
Council communist criticisms
For Rosa Luxemburg, anarcho-syndicalists had an undialectical view of revolution where they could build up their organisation, the one big union, set the date for the revolutionary general strike and that would be it. There was no space for spontaneity, or for learning from struggle and adapting the forms accordingly; the anarcho-syndicalist union was taken as a given. She contrasted the anarchist general strike to the mass strike, a more spontaneous expression of class struggle not called by any one group.
Her ruminations on the mass strikes in Russia – which she claimed were “the historical liquidation of anarchism” - led her to formulate a ‘dialectic of spontaneity and organisation.’ For Luxemburg, organisation was born in the midst of class struggle, she held the anarcho-syndicalists put the organisation before struggle; they thought building the union was the same as building the revolutionary struggle, since it was the union that would call the revolutionary general strike.
Ultra-left criticisms
Communist writer Gilles Dauvé has been particularly critical of anarcho-syndicalism. Whilst the Friends of Durruti and the platformists saw the failures of anarcho-syndicalism as stemming from the absence of a clear communist program, and Rosa Luxemburg and the council communists from a proscriptive disconnect from unforeseen, spontaneous developments of the class struggle, Dauvé argues the problems are far more fundamental. He writes that
“‘You can’t destroy a society by using the organs which are there to preserve it (..) any class who wants to liberate itself must create its own organ’, H. Lagardelle wrote in 1908, without realizing that his critique could be applied as much to the unions (including a supposed revolutionary syndicalist French CGT on a fast road to bureaucratisation and class collaboration) as to the parties of the Second International. Revolutionary syndicalism discarded the voter and preferred the producer: it forgot that bourgeois society creates and lives off both. Communism will go beyond both.”
Furthermore he argues that “the purpose of the old labour movement was to take over the same world and manage it in a new way: putting the idle to work, developing production, introducing workers’ democracy (in principle, at least). Only a tiny minority, ‘anarchist’ as well as ‘marxist’, held that a different society meant the destruction of the State, commodity and wage labour, although it rarely defined this as a process, rather as a programme to be put into practice after the seizure of power.”
CONTEMPORARY ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM
"Not only did the great determination and ingenuity on the part of the [Puerto Real] workers bring results, but that of the communities too. Mass assemblies both in the yards and surrounding localities involved workers, their families, neighbours and all supporters. Initiating and maintaining entire communities' involvement in mass assemblies alone was fine achievement."
– Solidarity Federation (1995)
There are numerous examples of contemporary anarcho-syndicalist practice, from the small group organising in Germany and the Netherlands described in FAU Bremen’s ‘Notes from the class struggle’ pamphlet,14 to the McDonalds Workers Resistance networkhere." href="#footnote15_k3k2bos">15 to recent struggles in Spain, Australia and elsewhere. However, we will focus on two examples that go beyond the limits of the classical anarcho-syndicalism we have considered thus far, and illustrate elements of contemporary practice which are emphasised in the SF’s industrial strategy. These two examples are the struggles around the shipyards in Puerto Real, Spain in 1987, and the Workmates collective that existed amongst track maintenance workers in London in the early part of this decade.
Puerto Real
When the Spanish government announced a programme of 'rationalisation' at the Puerto Real shipyards, the workforce came out on strike. The CNT was at the forefront in spreading the action to the surrounding population. Not only was the government defeated, but a number of pay and condition improvements were secured. The most noteworthy development was the spread of mass assemblies both in the shipyards and the surrounding communities. These assemblies were the sovereign bodies of the struggle, controlling it from the bottom up. People decided for themselves, rejecting control by unaccountable politicians, union officials or 'experts' and ensuring control remained in the workplace and locality.
These bodies reflected the kind of ‘dialectic of spontaneity and organisation’ that Rosa Luxemburg declared anarchism “liquidated” a century ago for lacking. The CNT did not seek to get everyone in the shipyards and surrounding communities to join it and then declare a strike (although their levels of membership and longer-term agitation certainly contributed to their influence), but when the rationalisations were announced they sought instead to initiate mass assemblies open to all workers regardless of union membership, whilst arguing for the core anarcho-syndicalist principles of solidarity, direct action and rank-and-file control.
Workmates
Workmates began as a handful of militants working in various track maintenance and engineering jobs on the London Underground in 2002. These included track installers, track welders, crossing makers, carpenters, ultrasonic rail testers, track vent cleaning gangs, along with lorry drivers. In Februrary 2003, a meeting attended by around 150 workers voted unanimously to move from being a loose collective of RMT members and set up a delegate council along anarcho-syndicalist lines. Each ‘gang’ of workers (typically between 8 and 12) elected a recallable delegate and mandated them to sit on the delegate council.
LUL used a large number of casualised agency staff, most of whom were non-unionised. These workers were also included in the Workmates collective, which was independent of the RMT and open to all workers at LUL (minus scabs and management). The initial struggle Workmates was involved with was resistance to the privatisation of LUL and concomitant attacks on working conditions this entailed. While LUL was privatised, Workmates subsequently scored several victories over working practices after mass meetings organised work-to-rules and delegates consulted with their gangs to plan further action.
However, there were also some defeats. These, coupled with high staff turnover meant that the levels of participation and struggle were not sufficient to sustain the delegate council structure. Consequently Workmates waned back to being a residual network of militants rather than an independent union, however a legacy of canteen mass meetings whenever a dispute arises remains, and the levels of solidarity are still high, as demonstrated by the level of support for a militant recently victimised by management in the depot where workmates is centred, which helped force an embarrassing climb-down.
ON FORM AND CONTENT (THE PRIMACY OF STRUGGLE)
"Communist revolution is the creation of non-profit, non-mercantile, co-operative and fraternal social relations, which implies smashing the State apparatus and doing away with the division between firms, with money as the universal mediator (and master), and with work as a separate activity. That is the content… this content won’t come out of any kind of form. Some forms are incompatible with the content. We can’t reason like the end was the only thing that mattered: the end is made out of means."
– Gilles Dauvé (2008)
Anarcho-syndicalism is commonly associated with particular organisational forms, namely revolutionary unions, mass meetings and mandated, recallable delegate councils. But it cannot be forgotten that these forms are necessarily the expression of some content. This is much like how a pot-maker can fashion many forms from a single lump of clay, but cannot fashion anything without the clay to start with. Structure requires substance, content precedes form. However we are not philosophers interested in such niceties for their own sake, but for their practical implications. So what is this content to which anarcho-syndicalism seeks to give form?
Simply, it is class struggle. Conflict between classes is immanent to capitalism, since capital is defined by our exploitation. We understand class struggle as a process of self-organisation to collectively advance our concrete, human needs as workers. Since these needs are in conflict with the needs of capital accumulation, the rejection of inhuman conditions carries with it the seed of a future human community; libertarian communism, the revolution described by Dauvé above. With the Workmates collective, we have an example of this content – a certain level of militancy – being given an anarcho-syndicalist form; a form which subsequently dissipated as the level of militant participation ebbed with high staff turnover and several telling defeats.
So while class struggle has primacy over the particular forms it takes, which are only means to advance our concrete needs and ultimately establish a society based on those needs, we do seek to give this struggle particular forms. These forms cannot be created from scratch, but we can seek to give disparate content a particular form, in turn focussing and developing that content. This is where the pot-maker analogy breaks down, because some forms sustain and expand the struggle while others strangle and suppress it. The relationship is dialectical in that the particular form the struggle takes in turn affects the development of the struggle. Since it is the class struggle that will create libertarian communism, we must always give it primacy over the needs of particular organisational forms. This was a lesson drawn by the Friends of Durruti when they found themselves facing expulsion from the CNT for advocating revolutionary struggle against the state of which it had become a part.
SOME NECESSARY DISTINCTIONS
"The most important thing that I would to point out, is that [in Puerto Real] we managed to create a structure whereby there was a permanent assembly taking place. In other words decisions within this particular conflict were made by those people who were directly involved in the conflict."
– Pepe Gomez, CNT (1995)
Before we can proceed further, we will need to make three conceptual distinctions. The reasons for such precision will become apparent in the following sections, as well as for properly understanding the Industrial Strategy which completes this pamphlet.
Permanent/non-permanent organisations
Pepe Gomez above describes the assemblies in Puerto Real as “permanent”, yet he also notes how they were an expression of a “particular conflict.” Perhaps ‘regular’ captures this meaning better in English. We would define a permanent organisation as one which endures between cycles of struggle – political parties, trade unions and anarchist propaganda groups are all permanent organisations. We would define non-permanent organisations as those which are inexorably the expression of a certain level of struggle and cannot outlive it without becoming something else entirely. The assemblies described by Pepe Gomez would fit into this category. For us therefore regular meetings do not equal permanent organisation.
Mass/minority organisations
We call a mass organisation one which is open to essentially all workers in whatever area it operates (we would call a popular organisation one open to all people, regardless of class). We call a minority organisation one which maintains specific, usually political criteria of membership which preclude some from joining. A trade union is an example of a mass organisation. A political group such as the Solidarity Federation is a minority organisation, since it requires agreement with specific, revolutionary aims and principles which are necessarily minority views outside of revolutionary upsurges. Some of the anti-war groups in 2002-4, at least those which organised via open public meetings as was the case in Brighton would be examples of a popular organisations.
Revolutionary/pro-revolutionary organisations
The final distinction we must draw is between revolutionary and pro-revolutionary organisations. We call revolutionary organisations those which are actually capable of making a revolution. These are necessarily mass organisations since no minority can make a revolution on behalf of the class – the pitfalls of such Leninist vanguardism are well known and don’t need repeating here. We call pro-revolutionary organisations those which are in favour of revolution but which are in no position to make it themselves. Propaganda groups would be an example of this. We do find the term ‘pro-revolutionary’ less than ideal, and in fact something like ‘agitational’ might be better. However this doesn’t immediately capture the relationship of the organisation to revolution that we are trying to convey.
ORGANISATION AND ORGANISATIONAL ROLES
"To organise is always a necessity, but the fixation on your own organisation can be perilous. Against that we believe in the diversity of groups and organisations, that arises from different situations and fulfil different needs in the flow of class struggle. Some are more temporary, while others are continuous."
– Riff Raff (1999)
We can use the distinctions in the previous section to identify four ideal types of organisation. Of course many different forms of organisation are possible, but only some are of interest to anarcho-syndicalists since only some offer the potential to develop the class struggle both in the here-and-now and ultimately in the direction of social revolution and libertarian communism. Now while these are ideal types and therefore not all actually existing organisations fit neatly into one category or the other, they do identify the real tensions present in organisations that try to defy the logic inherent to their particular organisational form. We will discuss real-world examples below to help illustrate the argument.
Mass, permanent organisations
Mass, permanent organisations are by definition de-linked from the levels of militancy of their members and class struggle more broadly. Therefore, they are not expressions of the self-organisation of workers sought by anarcho-syndicalists, but for the representation of workers as workers. We therefore recognise that neither trade unions or so-called mass workers’ parties are revolutionary organisations. In the case of trade unions, their structural role as representatives of labour power within capitalism compels them to offer disciplined workforces to the employers.
If they cannot offer the promise of industrial peace, they are in no position to negotiate. Such social partnership is inherent to the idea of mass, permanent workers representation, de-linked from class struggle. Furthermore, they divide up the class by trade and in addition to their structural limitations are bound by a host of laws just to make sure they fulfil this function, such as restrictions on secondary action and the notice needed for industrial action, all on pain of the sequestration of funds and imprisonment of officials.
If levels of militancy are low, trade unions work hand-in-hand with management to impose cuts and restructuring. If levels of struggle are higher, they will posture more militantly and operate as a limited expression of that struggle in order to appear to workers to really 'represent' their interests, calling tokenistic one-day strikes and suchlike. There are numerous recent examples.22 As and when such struggles begin to take on a self-organised character and go beyond the institutional and legal limits of the trade union form - by the development of mass meetings, wildcat action, flying pickets etc – two things can happen. The trade union will either come into conflict with the workers (as in the isolation of the Liverpool postal wildcat during the national strikes of 200723), or effectively cease to exist as a permanent organisation as it is superseded by the structures of mass meetings and the like, which as expressions of the level of militancy represent a non-permanent, potentially revolutionary supersession of the mass/permanent trade union form.
Consequently, we hold that not only are permanent mass organisations not revolutionary, but that in the final analysis they are counter-revolutionary institutions (note, we are not saying trade unionists are counter-revolutionary, the institutions are). The counter-revolutionary nature of trade unions does not arise from bad leadership, bureaucratisation and a lack of internal democracy, rather the leadership, bureaucratisation and lack of internal democracy arise from the logic of permanent mass organisations representing workers as workers. As revolutionary forms are necessarily the expression of class struggle and so necessarily non-permanent, the de-linking of form from content represents a counter-revolutionary inertia.
Of course it does not follow that we reject membership or activity within the trade unions, as their ultimately counter-revolutionary nature does not mean revolution would break out tomorrow if they suddenly ceased to be. Rather, the unions only act as a brake on struggles when they develop a degree of self-organisation in contradiction to the permanent form. Until that point, they do act as a limited expression of struggles precisely to secure their role as representatives. Consequently as workers we think it makes sense to be union members in workplaces where a trade union is recognised.
But as anarcho-syndicalists we hold no illusions in reforming them in accordance with our principles; instead arguing for, and where possible implementing, an anarcho-syndicalist strategy of mass meetings, mandated recallable delegates, delegate councils and secondary solidarity action regardless of the wishes of the union. Reforming the trade unions would be a waste of time, because the very level of self-organisation required to force such reforms would render the reforms themselves redundant, since we’d already be doing the things independently we were lobbying to be allowed to do. In workplaces where there is no recognised union, we advocate alternative structures, which will be discussed below.
Minority, permanent organisations
These are the kinds of organisation familiar to us today. There are two distinct pro-revolutionary roles for minority permanent organisations of interest to anarcho-syndicalists: propaganda groups and networks of militants. We see these as two distinct roles that organisations can fulfil. This could be attempted as a single organisation – as is the case with the SF’s current attempts to operate a dual structure of locals and industrial networks – or separate organisations, each focusing on its own role. We will elaborate our preference in the following ‘how we see it’ section, for now it is sufficient to understand that within a given type of organisation there can be distinct roles. We do not find it useful to refer to any kind of minority organisation - even an industrial/workplace one - as a union as in English in particular this has the connotations of mass organisations, for which we reserve the term.
Minority, non-permanent organisations
This type of organisation essentially mirrors minority/permanent ones, except that they will be created out of the needs of the class struggle at given times and places rather then being something we could have a general strategy for building. Examples would be the Friends of Durruti as a hybrid propaganda group/network of militants, and arguably workplace groups like McDonalds Workers Resistance,the informal social networks of ‘faceless resistance’ described by the Swedish communist group Kämpa Tillsammans,here." or some of the groups of anti-war activists that formed during the upsurge in anti-war sentiments in 2002. On account of their varied and non-permanent nature the only strategic approach to such organisations we can offer is to support them where they form and to try and create them in our own workplaces or localities as and when conditions permit.
Mass, non-permanent organisations
Mass, non-permanent organisations are a product of a certain level of class struggle, and therefore they cannot simply be built piecemeal by recruitment. For us, these organisations are the only type that are potentially revolutionary, as they are the mass expression of heightened class conflict. The organisations we can build in the present are the pro-revolutionary, minority ones, which can network, propagandise and agitate to develop the class struggle and give it anarcho-syndicalist forms as it develops. We think failure to recognise the fundamental difference between mass revolutionary organisations and minority pro-revolutionary organisations can only lead to practical confusion and demoralisation. Only if we recognise the relationship of organisation to class struggle can we be clear about what is possible and practical in the here and now and also how this gets us closer to the mass, revolutionary unions we want to see (more on which in the following section ‘how we see it’).
Reprise
It must be borne in mind that these four organisational types are to a certain extent idealised ones. In reality, groups exist that are in fact combinations of them. However these ideal types represent real tensions. For instance the paradox of a mass, directly democratic revolutionary organisation in times when the majority of workers are not pro-revolutionary places real limits on the size of attempts to create revolutionary unions in the here and now. Take for example the split between the Spanish CNT and the CGT over participation in state-run class collaborationist works councils.
The departure of the Swedish SAC from the International Workers Association (IWA) for similar reasons also reflects this paradox: internal democracy in a mass organisation when the majority of workers are not pro-revolutionary means the organisation has to sacrifice either internal democracy or its revolutionary principles – either way breaking with anarcho-syndicalism - the only other alternative being implausibly successful internal education to turn all members into pro-revolutionaries. Furthermore, the very co-existence of revolutionary organisations with the state is a necessarily unstable, temporary situation of dual power, they either make a revolution, are repressed, or accommodate themselves to legal existence as a regularised trade union.
Consequently while the organisational types we have described are not definitive of all actually-existing organisations, they do demonstrate the distinct types that exist and the tensions present within organisations that try to combine them. The paradox is only resolved with increased levels of class struggle and class consciousness – hence revolutionary unions are necessarily non-permanent products of struggle, and attempts to maintain them beyond the struggle of which they are an expression will see them lapse into a counter-revolutionary role. Without militant struggle they couldn’t but become organs for the representation of workers within capitalism, not the ultimate abolition of the working class.
OUR NOTION OF REVOLUTION
"A libertarian communist economy, a system without the market and where everyone has equal rights to have their needs met, has always been the aim of anarcho-syndicalists. Workers' self-management would amount to little in a world of inequality with decisions being dictated by the market."
– Solidarity Federation (2003)
Anarcho-syndicalists are libertarian communists. Without this communist perspective, anarcho-syndicalism would amount to little more than democratic trade unionism for a self-managed capitalism. Communists recognise that capitalism is not simply an undemocratic mode of management, but a mode of production. Making it more democratic doesn’t make it any more responsive to human needs so long as money, commodity production and exchange persist. Consequently, against Rudolph Rocker’s classical position quoted earlier in this pamphlet, our notion of revolution is not simply the taking over of production in order to self-manage it democratically, but a simultaneous process of communisation – restructuring social production around human need.
This entails not the liberation of the working class envisaged by Rocker, but our abolition as a class and with it the negation of all classes. It also implies not the democratisation of work but its abolition as a separate sphere of human activity. Much activity - waged or not - that is potentially rewarding in itself is reduced to repetitive, alienating work by the requirements of capital accumulation. We don’t want democratically self-managed alienation, but its abolition. Furthermore - and this is of practical import to anarcho-syndicalists – whole sectors of the economy need to be abolished altogether, while those that remain need to be radically transformed in terms of the division of labour and the nature of productive activity itself.
This is significant, since while for example mass assemblies of call centre or financial services workers will likely be a part of any revolutionary upsurge, outbound call centres and finance have no place in a libertarian communist society. In parts of the UK these sectors account for nearly half of all employment. But at some point these assemblies would be deciding to dissolve themselves as part of the process of reorganising production around human needs, a process which constitutes social revolution. This once again demonstrates the limitations of the classical approach stressing the goal of self-management alone and reaffirms the need to state clearly and unequivocally that we are communists and that social revolution is a process of communisation.
HOW WE SEE IT
"We want a society based on workers' self-management, solidarity, mutual aid and libertarian communism. That society can only be achieved by working class organisations based on the same principles - revolutionary unions (...) Revolutionary unions are means for working people to organise and fight all the issues - both in the workplace and outside."
– Solidarity Federation Constitution (2005)
As we have seen, an anarcho-syndicalist union isn’t just a really democratic trade union, but an altogether different beast with an altogether different purpose. Permanent mass organisations such as trade unions exist as things which organise workers. By contrast, the revolutionary unions advocated by anarcho-syndicalists are an expression of a process of workers’ self-organisation at its higher points. Therefore if we want to see these organisations, we have to agitate to build the class struggle itself, and for it to take these forms as and when class militancy develops sufficiently. ‘Building the union’ per se literally makes no sense, and represents a fetishism of form that forgets that the form can only ever be an expression of content, of class struggle.
For us, a revolutionary union is necessarily non-permanent because it is an expression of a given wave of class struggle. It cannot outlive the struggle of which it is an expression without becoming something fundamentally different, something counter-revolutionary, precisely because anarcho-syndicalist unions are defined by militant participation, direct action, solidarity and rank-and-file control. The particular form such unions entail is mass assemblies open to all workers (minus scabs and managers), and mandated recallable delegates forming delegate councils to co-ordinate the struggle. Federation by region and/or industry would also be advised as the numbers of such assemblies grew.
In order to develop the class struggle in a direction where such revolutionary unions are possible, we see two distinct organisational roles to enable anarcho-syndicalists to engage in direct action in the here-and-now. These are libertarian communist propaganda groups (of which anarcho-syndicalist propaganda groups are a subset), and networks of militants (of which industrial networks are a subset, on which we will focus).
In contrast to a platformist ‘general union of anarchists’ or left communist ‘single proletarian party’ we take a more pluralist approach to propaganda groups. While we are opposed to needless duplication of effort and resources, we are also opposed to the false unity that often accompanies attempts to unite everyone into one single political organisation. If there are real political differences between groups, they should organise independently. This does not however preclude practical co-operation on concrete projects of common interest. Consequently, while we clearly believe strongly in our ideas and seek to persuade others of them, with regard to propaganda groups we advocate an approach of non-sectarian pluralism and fraternal co-operation wherever possible to spread libertarian communist ideas and develop the class struggle.
In terms of propaganda, our goal is twofold: both to win other pro-revolutionaries to our positions and tactics, and to promote anarcho-syndicalist tactics and libertarian communist ideas amongst the wider class. The most obvious means of the former is the production of pamphlets and engaging in debates with the wider pro-revolutionary milieu – if we are confident in our ideas we should not fear an open confrontation of them with others. The latter goal of spreading our ideas amongst the wider class entails activities like producing and distributing strike bulletins on picket lines or distributing propaganda at workplaces facing redundancies, as well as maintaining accessible online information and holding public meetings.
As to industrial networks, we see membership of these as less determined by ideas and more by economic position (being a militant in a particular industry). Of course a level of theoretical and tactical agreement is required – networks are not apolitical - but we do not see this as being as high as for propaganda groups. For example it would be foolish not to organise with other militants because they have a different understanding of revolution, or are yet to be convinced of its necessity, but nonetheless support direct action, mass meetings and rank-and-file control of struggles.
Consequently we believe membership of a political organisation should not be a precondition of joining an industrial network as it represents an unnecessary barrier to the establishment and growth of such networks. Therefore we see the development of such networks as a concrete project for practical co-operation with other pro-revolutionary groups and non-aligned individuals who also see the need for them. The role of these networks would be to produce industrially specific propaganda and agitate industrially for direct action, solidarity and rank-and-file control. In the immediate term this means invisible, ‘faceless resistance’, but the goal is to foster open conflict controlled by mass meetings of all workers.
This may seem to represent a separation of political and economic organisation alien to anarcho-syndicalism. We do not agree. Both organisational roles address both ‘economic’ and ‘political’ issues of interest to the class, whether wages and conditions or border controls and the availability of abortions. The only separation is one which is a material fact of capitalist society – we share an economic position with fellow workers who may well be militant without sharing all our political ideas. We simply say this should not be a barrier to common action, only that it should be recognised and organisations structured accordingly. We believe the propaganda group/industrial network roles are a means of achieving this.
Finally, we should say that the list of activities given as examples for each type of organisation is not exhaustive. There are for example times when either type could engage in forms of direct action either to support its members or to support other workers in struggle who for whatever reason cannot take certain forms of action themselves.London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP) would also be an example of a group that engages in direct action both outside the workplace and beyond just propaganda." The possibilities thrown up by the class struggle cannot all be known in advance, and it would be foolish to try and prescribe exactly and exhaustively what each organisation should do. Instead, we seek only to describe the kinds of organisation that can advance the class struggle and move us closer to libertarian communism.
SOLIDARITY FEDERATION INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The Solidarity Federation seeks to create a militant opposition to the bosses and the state, controlled by the workers themselves. Its strategy can apply equally to those in the official trade unions who wish to organise independently of the union bureaucracy and those who wish to set up other types of self-organisation.
Rank and file control
Decisions should be made collectively. This means they are made by mass meetings, not by officials in union offices. These mass meetings include all those in the workplace, regardless of union membership. It will not, however, include scabs or managers.
Anyone we elect to negotiate with management should have a mandate from the workforce that gives them clear guidance on what is and is not acceptable. Mass meetings of workers need to be able to recall all delegates.
Direct action
Direct action at work means strikes, go-slows, working-to-rule, occupations and boycotts. We are opposed to the alternative which is 'partnership' with bosses. Workers can only win serious concessions from management when industrial action is used or when bosses fear it might be.
Solidarity
Solidarity with other workers is the key to victory. Workers should support each others' disputes despite the anti-trade union laws. We need to approach other workers directly for their support. 'Don't Cross Picket Lines!'
Control of funds
Strike funds need to be controlled by the workers themselves. Officials will refuse to fund unlawful solidarity action. Union bureaucrats use official backing and strike pay to turn action on and off like a tap.
Unions use a large proportion of their political funds on sponsoring parliamentary candidates. Backing the Labour Party is not in the interests of workers. We should also not fall into the trap of backing so-called 'socialist' candidates. The Parliamentary system is about working class people giving up power and control, not exercising it.
Social change
The interests of the working class lie in the destruction of capitalist society. The whole of the wealth of society is produced by the workers. However, a portion of this is converted into profits for the shareholders and business people who own the means of production. When workers make wage demands, they are simply trying to win a bigger share of what is rightfully their own.
This means that trade union organisation around traditional bread and butter issues is not enough on its own, although it is vital. As well as a structure of mass meetings and delegates there also needs to be a specifically anarcho-syndicalist presence in any workplace organisation. This will necessarily involve only a minority of workers in the present time. The role of anarcho-syndicalist militants is not to control the workplace organisation but to put forward an anarcho-syndicalist perspective in the meetings of the workplace organisation and attempt to gain broad support for our aims and principles, through propaganda work.
Preamble
Solidarity Federation's ultimate aim is a self-managed, stateless society based on the principle of from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. It is a society where we are no longer just used as a means to an end by bosses wanting to make money from our labour.
In the medium term and as an essential forerunner to such a society, SolFed promotes and seeks to initiate anarcho-syndicalist unions. To this end, SolFed seeks to create a militant opposition to the bosses and the state, controlled by the workers themselves. Its strategy can apply equally to those in the official trade unions who wish to organise independently of the union bureaucracy and those who wish to set up other types of self-organisation.
Details of the strategy
Mass meetings should be seen as an alternative structure to official union structures that are dominated by full-time bureaucrats. Decisions are made collectively in these assemblies. The work of these assemblies in different workplaces should be co-ordinated by delegate councils.
In the most militant workforces regular mass meetings will be held and this is obviously the ideal we are aiming at. This may not be possible in other workplaces where it will only be possible to organise such meetings when a dispute arises.
We need a three-pronged approach to the business of actually setting up an independent organisation at work.
1.In a workplace with a recognised TUC union, an SF member would join the union but promote an anarcho-syndicalist strategy. This would involve organising workplace assemblies to make collective decisions on workplace issues. However, workers will still be likely to hold union cards here to avoid splits in the workplace between union members and non-union members.
2.In a non-unionised workplace, independent unions, based on the principle of collective decision-making, should be set up wherever possible.
3.In a non-unionised workplace, that is difficult to organise due to a high turnover of staff or a large number of temps, we should just call workers assemblies when a dispute arises.
http://revsoc.org/archives/4644#more-4644
PREFACE
Since this document was first circulated, it has provoked both discussion within the Solidarity Federation - where in its current form it represents a minority viewpoint - and also in the wider libertarian class struggle milieu, with reports of discussions from the Netherlands to Eastern Europe to the United States.
Brighton SolFed
May 2009
INTRODUCTION
– Self Education Collective (2001)
Anarcho-syndicalism is a specific tendency within the wider workers’ movement. As a tendency, it has a history of its own dating back over a century. In contemporary discussions many - self-identified advocates and critics alike – take the tradition as it was 50, 70 or 100 years ago as definitive of the tradition as a whole. There is also the fact that the tradition is a plural one, and its core principles have allowed varied, sometimes conflicting practices at differing times in its history. The anarcho-syndicalism of the CNT of 1930 was not the same as the CNT of 1980. The anarcho-syndicalism of the Friends of Durruti was different yet again. As was that of the FORA. And so on.
What this underlines is the need to clarify exactly what anarcho-syndicalism means in practical terms in a 21st century context. That is the purpose of this pamphlet. This aim will be pursued by way of introducing the current industrial strategy of the Solidarity Federation (SF), with some historical context as well as theoretical clarification of the meaning of a ‘revolutionary union’, different organisational roles and the relationship between the form and content of class struggle. This theoretical clarification is solely for the purpose of informing contemporary practice, and not some mere intellectual exercise.
So we see anarcho-syndicalism as a living tradition that develops through a critical reflection on our experiences and adaptation to new conditions. It may well be the ideas presented here are not unique to any one tradition of the workers’ movement and may find resonance with those who do not identify as anarcho-syndicalists - if anything this is evidence of their validity. This pamphlet is written to contribute to new and more effective action, from which we can collectively bring about a better society more quickly; it is written in the spirit of anarcho-syndicalism.
CLASSICAL ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM
"Through the taking over of the management of all plants by the producers themselves under such form that the separate groups, plants, and branches of industry are independent members of the general economic organism and systematically carry on production and the distribution of the products (…) Theirs must be the task of freeing labour from all the fetters which economic exploitation has fastened on it."
- Rudolph Rocker (1938)
Anarcho-syndicalism emerged in the late 19th century from the libertarian wing of the workers’ movement. Stressing solidarity, direct action and workers’ self-management, it represented a turn to the labour movement and collective, class struggle in contrast to the concurrent tendency of individualistic ‘propaganda by the deed’ – assassinations and terrorist bombings – that had become popular with many anarchists following the massacre of the Paris Commune in 1871.
Classical syndicalists, including many anarcho-syndicalists sought to unite the working class into revolutionary unions. Like the ‘One Big Unionism’ of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) the goal was to build industrial unions until such a point as they could declare a revolutionary general strike as the prelude to social revolution. However, unlike the IWW on the one hand, and Marxists and social democrats on the other, anarcho-syndicalists rejected the separation of economic (trade union) and political (party) struggles.
They stressed that workers themselves should unite to fight for their interests whether at the point of production or elsewhere, not leave such struggles to the specialists of political parties or union officials or still less neglect political goals such as the overthrow of capital and the state in favour of purely economic organisation around wages and working hours. Furthermore they stressed that workers should retain control of their organisations through direct democratic means such as sovereign mass meetings and mandated, recallable delegates.
The goal of these unions - as suggested in the Rudolph Rocker quote above – was to expropriate the means of production and manage them democratically without bosses. As such, the dominant tendency saw building the union as ‘building the new society in the shell of the old.’ The same directly democratic structures created to fight the bosses would form the basic structure of a new society once the bosses were successfully expropriated.
Consequently, building the union was seen as one and the same as building both the new society and the social revolution that would bring it about. Class struggle became not just a question of (self-)organisation, but of building the organisation. As the union grew to a sufficient size and influence, strikes could be launched, culminating in the revolutionary general strike that would bring about libertarian communism. There was almost a blueprint for social revolution that simply needed to be implemented.
This approach appeared to be vindicated with the outbreak of the Spanish revolution in 1936 in which the anarcho-syndicalist CNT played a prominent role. In Barcelona, factories, public transport and other workplaces were taken over and self-managed by their workers. In the countryside land was collectivised and libertarian communism proclaimed. However the revolution ended, tragically, in defeat, but not before the paradoxical spectacle of the CNT providing anarchist ministers to the government while it ordered insurgent workers off the streets.
The experience of Spain led to many criticisms of classical anarcho-syndicalism in addition to those which had already been made during its development in the early 20th century. To these criticisms we will now turn.
CRITICISMS OF CLASSICAL ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM
"The modern proletarian class does not carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight..."
– Rosa Luxemburg (1918)
Criticisms have come from many quarters. We will focus here on four in particular which have relevance to developing anarcho-syndicalist practice as they share our goal of libertarian communism (unlike say, social democratic criticisms). Addressed in order of their severity, these four criticisms are: those which emerged from within - at the height of the Spanish revolution in the form of the Friends of Durruti group; those from the platformist tradition that grew out of the lessons of the 1917 anarchist revolution in the Ukraine; those which came from the council communist tendency in the workers’ movement, and in particular Rosa Luxemburg; and finally those which, for want of a better term emanate from the contemporary ‘ultra-left’ and Gilles Dauvé in particular.
The Friends of Durruti’s criticisms
The Friends of Durruti (FoD) were a group of rank-and-file CNT militants during the Spanish revolution in 1936. Their main criticism was that having defeated the army and taken the streets and workplaces, the CNT didn’t know where to go. “The CNT did not know how to live up to its role. It did not want to push ahead with the revolution with all of its consequences (…) it behaved like a minority group, even though it had a majority in the streets.” The CNT simply started self-managing the workplaces and collaborating with the remnants of the state, rather than decisively smashing the state and moving towards libertarian communism. For the FoD, the CNT lacked two things: “a program, and rifles.”
Platformist criticisms
In many ways platformist criticisms are similar to those of the FoD; whilst supporting the structures of anarcho-syndicalist unions they stress the need for a specific libertarian communist organisation to argue for a communist program within such mass organisations. This organisation would be a single ‘general union of anarchists’ and be founded on four organisational principles; theoretical unity, tactical unity, collective responsibility and federalism.
In contrast to classical anarcho-syndicalism, contemporary platformism seeks not to build mass organisations, but to insert into them and influence them in an anarchist direction. For example the position paper on trade unions by the influential platformist Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) states that “no matter how conservative they can become, it does not alter the fact that they are the most important mass organisations of the working class (…) activity within them is an extremely important ongoing activity.” Consequently, they advocate reforming the existing Trade Unions towards anarcho-syndicalist structures of mandated recallable delegates, rank-and-file control etc.
Council communist criticisms
For Rosa Luxemburg, anarcho-syndicalists had an undialectical view of revolution where they could build up their organisation, the one big union, set the date for the revolutionary general strike and that would be it. There was no space for spontaneity, or for learning from struggle and adapting the forms accordingly; the anarcho-syndicalist union was taken as a given. She contrasted the anarchist general strike to the mass strike, a more spontaneous expression of class struggle not called by any one group.
Her ruminations on the mass strikes in Russia – which she claimed were “the historical liquidation of anarchism” - led her to formulate a ‘dialectic of spontaneity and organisation.’ For Luxemburg, organisation was born in the midst of class struggle, she held the anarcho-syndicalists put the organisation before struggle; they thought building the union was the same as building the revolutionary struggle, since it was the union that would call the revolutionary general strike.
Ultra-left criticisms
Communist writer Gilles Dauvé has been particularly critical of anarcho-syndicalism. Whilst the Friends of Durruti and the platformists saw the failures of anarcho-syndicalism as stemming from the absence of a clear communist program, and Rosa Luxemburg and the council communists from a proscriptive disconnect from unforeseen, spontaneous developments of the class struggle, Dauvé argues the problems are far more fundamental. He writes that
“‘You can’t destroy a society by using the organs which are there to preserve it (..) any class who wants to liberate itself must create its own organ’, H. Lagardelle wrote in 1908, without realizing that his critique could be applied as much to the unions (including a supposed revolutionary syndicalist French CGT on a fast road to bureaucratisation and class collaboration) as to the parties of the Second International. Revolutionary syndicalism discarded the voter and preferred the producer: it forgot that bourgeois society creates and lives off both. Communism will go beyond both.”
Furthermore he argues that “the purpose of the old labour movement was to take over the same world and manage it in a new way: putting the idle to work, developing production, introducing workers’ democracy (in principle, at least). Only a tiny minority, ‘anarchist’ as well as ‘marxist’, held that a different society meant the destruction of the State, commodity and wage labour, although it rarely defined this as a process, rather as a programme to be put into practice after the seizure of power.”
CONTEMPORARY ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM
"Not only did the great determination and ingenuity on the part of the [Puerto Real] workers bring results, but that of the communities too. Mass assemblies both in the yards and surrounding localities involved workers, their families, neighbours and all supporters. Initiating and maintaining entire communities' involvement in mass assemblies alone was fine achievement."
– Solidarity Federation (1995)
There are numerous examples of contemporary anarcho-syndicalist practice, from the small group organising in Germany and the Netherlands described in FAU Bremen’s ‘Notes from the class struggle’ pamphlet,14 to the McDonalds Workers Resistance networkhere." href="#footnote15_k3k2bos">15 to recent struggles in Spain, Australia and elsewhere. However, we will focus on two examples that go beyond the limits of the classical anarcho-syndicalism we have considered thus far, and illustrate elements of contemporary practice which are emphasised in the SF’s industrial strategy. These two examples are the struggles around the shipyards in Puerto Real, Spain in 1987, and the Workmates collective that existed amongst track maintenance workers in London in the early part of this decade.
Puerto Real
When the Spanish government announced a programme of 'rationalisation' at the Puerto Real shipyards, the workforce came out on strike. The CNT was at the forefront in spreading the action to the surrounding population. Not only was the government defeated, but a number of pay and condition improvements were secured. The most noteworthy development was the spread of mass assemblies both in the shipyards and the surrounding communities. These assemblies were the sovereign bodies of the struggle, controlling it from the bottom up. People decided for themselves, rejecting control by unaccountable politicians, union officials or 'experts' and ensuring control remained in the workplace and locality.
These bodies reflected the kind of ‘dialectic of spontaneity and organisation’ that Rosa Luxemburg declared anarchism “liquidated” a century ago for lacking. The CNT did not seek to get everyone in the shipyards and surrounding communities to join it and then declare a strike (although their levels of membership and longer-term agitation certainly contributed to their influence), but when the rationalisations were announced they sought instead to initiate mass assemblies open to all workers regardless of union membership, whilst arguing for the core anarcho-syndicalist principles of solidarity, direct action and rank-and-file control.
Workmates
Workmates began as a handful of militants working in various track maintenance and engineering jobs on the London Underground in 2002. These included track installers, track welders, crossing makers, carpenters, ultrasonic rail testers, track vent cleaning gangs, along with lorry drivers. In Februrary 2003, a meeting attended by around 150 workers voted unanimously to move from being a loose collective of RMT members and set up a delegate council along anarcho-syndicalist lines. Each ‘gang’ of workers (typically between 8 and 12) elected a recallable delegate and mandated them to sit on the delegate council.
LUL used a large number of casualised agency staff, most of whom were non-unionised. These workers were also included in the Workmates collective, which was independent of the RMT and open to all workers at LUL (minus scabs and management). The initial struggle Workmates was involved with was resistance to the privatisation of LUL and concomitant attacks on working conditions this entailed. While LUL was privatised, Workmates subsequently scored several victories over working practices after mass meetings organised work-to-rules and delegates consulted with their gangs to plan further action.
However, there were also some defeats. These, coupled with high staff turnover meant that the levels of participation and struggle were not sufficient to sustain the delegate council structure. Consequently Workmates waned back to being a residual network of militants rather than an independent union, however a legacy of canteen mass meetings whenever a dispute arises remains, and the levels of solidarity are still high, as demonstrated by the level of support for a militant recently victimised by management in the depot where workmates is centred, which helped force an embarrassing climb-down.
ON FORM AND CONTENT (THE PRIMACY OF STRUGGLE)
"Communist revolution is the creation of non-profit, non-mercantile, co-operative and fraternal social relations, which implies smashing the State apparatus and doing away with the division between firms, with money as the universal mediator (and master), and with work as a separate activity. That is the content… this content won’t come out of any kind of form. Some forms are incompatible with the content. We can’t reason like the end was the only thing that mattered: the end is made out of means."
– Gilles Dauvé (2008)
Anarcho-syndicalism is commonly associated with particular organisational forms, namely revolutionary unions, mass meetings and mandated, recallable delegate councils. But it cannot be forgotten that these forms are necessarily the expression of some content. This is much like how a pot-maker can fashion many forms from a single lump of clay, but cannot fashion anything without the clay to start with. Structure requires substance, content precedes form. However we are not philosophers interested in such niceties for their own sake, but for their practical implications. So what is this content to which anarcho-syndicalism seeks to give form?
Simply, it is class struggle. Conflict between classes is immanent to capitalism, since capital is defined by our exploitation. We understand class struggle as a process of self-organisation to collectively advance our concrete, human needs as workers. Since these needs are in conflict with the needs of capital accumulation, the rejection of inhuman conditions carries with it the seed of a future human community; libertarian communism, the revolution described by Dauvé above. With the Workmates collective, we have an example of this content – a certain level of militancy – being given an anarcho-syndicalist form; a form which subsequently dissipated as the level of militant participation ebbed with high staff turnover and several telling defeats.
So while class struggle has primacy over the particular forms it takes, which are only means to advance our concrete needs and ultimately establish a society based on those needs, we do seek to give this struggle particular forms. These forms cannot be created from scratch, but we can seek to give disparate content a particular form, in turn focussing and developing that content. This is where the pot-maker analogy breaks down, because some forms sustain and expand the struggle while others strangle and suppress it. The relationship is dialectical in that the particular form the struggle takes in turn affects the development of the struggle. Since it is the class struggle that will create libertarian communism, we must always give it primacy over the needs of particular organisational forms. This was a lesson drawn by the Friends of Durruti when they found themselves facing expulsion from the CNT for advocating revolutionary struggle against the state of which it had become a part.
SOME NECESSARY DISTINCTIONS
"The most important thing that I would to point out, is that [in Puerto Real] we managed to create a structure whereby there was a permanent assembly taking place. In other words decisions within this particular conflict were made by those people who were directly involved in the conflict."
– Pepe Gomez, CNT (1995)
Before we can proceed further, we will need to make three conceptual distinctions. The reasons for such precision will become apparent in the following sections, as well as for properly understanding the Industrial Strategy which completes this pamphlet.
Permanent/non-permanent organisations
Pepe Gomez above describes the assemblies in Puerto Real as “permanent”, yet he also notes how they were an expression of a “particular conflict.” Perhaps ‘regular’ captures this meaning better in English. We would define a permanent organisation as one which endures between cycles of struggle – political parties, trade unions and anarchist propaganda groups are all permanent organisations. We would define non-permanent organisations as those which are inexorably the expression of a certain level of struggle and cannot outlive it without becoming something else entirely. The assemblies described by Pepe Gomez would fit into this category. For us therefore regular meetings do not equal permanent organisation.
Mass/minority organisations
We call a mass organisation one which is open to essentially all workers in whatever area it operates (we would call a popular organisation one open to all people, regardless of class). We call a minority organisation one which maintains specific, usually political criteria of membership which preclude some from joining. A trade union is an example of a mass organisation. A political group such as the Solidarity Federation is a minority organisation, since it requires agreement with specific, revolutionary aims and principles which are necessarily minority views outside of revolutionary upsurges. Some of the anti-war groups in 2002-4, at least those which organised via open public meetings as was the case in Brighton would be examples of a popular organisations.
Revolutionary/pro-revolutionary organisations
The final distinction we must draw is between revolutionary and pro-revolutionary organisations. We call revolutionary organisations those which are actually capable of making a revolution. These are necessarily mass organisations since no minority can make a revolution on behalf of the class – the pitfalls of such Leninist vanguardism are well known and don’t need repeating here. We call pro-revolutionary organisations those which are in favour of revolution but which are in no position to make it themselves. Propaganda groups would be an example of this. We do find the term ‘pro-revolutionary’ less than ideal, and in fact something like ‘agitational’ might be better. However this doesn’t immediately capture the relationship of the organisation to revolution that we are trying to convey.
ORGANISATION AND ORGANISATIONAL ROLES
"To organise is always a necessity, but the fixation on your own organisation can be perilous. Against that we believe in the diversity of groups and organisations, that arises from different situations and fulfil different needs in the flow of class struggle. Some are more temporary, while others are continuous."
– Riff Raff (1999)
We can use the distinctions in the previous section to identify four ideal types of organisation. Of course many different forms of organisation are possible, but only some are of interest to anarcho-syndicalists since only some offer the potential to develop the class struggle both in the here-and-now and ultimately in the direction of social revolution and libertarian communism. Now while these are ideal types and therefore not all actually existing organisations fit neatly into one category or the other, they do identify the real tensions present in organisations that try to defy the logic inherent to their particular organisational form. We will discuss real-world examples below to help illustrate the argument.
Mass, permanent organisations
Mass, permanent organisations are by definition de-linked from the levels of militancy of their members and class struggle more broadly. Therefore, they are not expressions of the self-organisation of workers sought by anarcho-syndicalists, but for the representation of workers as workers. We therefore recognise that neither trade unions or so-called mass workers’ parties are revolutionary organisations. In the case of trade unions, their structural role as representatives of labour power within capitalism compels them to offer disciplined workforces to the employers.
If they cannot offer the promise of industrial peace, they are in no position to negotiate. Such social partnership is inherent to the idea of mass, permanent workers representation, de-linked from class struggle. Furthermore, they divide up the class by trade and in addition to their structural limitations are bound by a host of laws just to make sure they fulfil this function, such as restrictions on secondary action and the notice needed for industrial action, all on pain of the sequestration of funds and imprisonment of officials.
If levels of militancy are low, trade unions work hand-in-hand with management to impose cuts and restructuring. If levels of struggle are higher, they will posture more militantly and operate as a limited expression of that struggle in order to appear to workers to really 'represent' their interests, calling tokenistic one-day strikes and suchlike. There are numerous recent examples.22 As and when such struggles begin to take on a self-organised character and go beyond the institutional and legal limits of the trade union form - by the development of mass meetings, wildcat action, flying pickets etc – two things can happen. The trade union will either come into conflict with the workers (as in the isolation of the Liverpool postal wildcat during the national strikes of 200723), or effectively cease to exist as a permanent organisation as it is superseded by the structures of mass meetings and the like, which as expressions of the level of militancy represent a non-permanent, potentially revolutionary supersession of the mass/permanent trade union form.
Consequently, we hold that not only are permanent mass organisations not revolutionary, but that in the final analysis they are counter-revolutionary institutions (note, we are not saying trade unionists are counter-revolutionary, the institutions are). The counter-revolutionary nature of trade unions does not arise from bad leadership, bureaucratisation and a lack of internal democracy, rather the leadership, bureaucratisation and lack of internal democracy arise from the logic of permanent mass organisations representing workers as workers. As revolutionary forms are necessarily the expression of class struggle and so necessarily non-permanent, the de-linking of form from content represents a counter-revolutionary inertia.
Of course it does not follow that we reject membership or activity within the trade unions, as their ultimately counter-revolutionary nature does not mean revolution would break out tomorrow if they suddenly ceased to be. Rather, the unions only act as a brake on struggles when they develop a degree of self-organisation in contradiction to the permanent form. Until that point, they do act as a limited expression of struggles precisely to secure their role as representatives. Consequently as workers we think it makes sense to be union members in workplaces where a trade union is recognised.
But as anarcho-syndicalists we hold no illusions in reforming them in accordance with our principles; instead arguing for, and where possible implementing, an anarcho-syndicalist strategy of mass meetings, mandated recallable delegates, delegate councils and secondary solidarity action regardless of the wishes of the union. Reforming the trade unions would be a waste of time, because the very level of self-organisation required to force such reforms would render the reforms themselves redundant, since we’d already be doing the things independently we were lobbying to be allowed to do. In workplaces where there is no recognised union, we advocate alternative structures, which will be discussed below.
Minority, permanent organisations
These are the kinds of organisation familiar to us today. There are two distinct pro-revolutionary roles for minority permanent organisations of interest to anarcho-syndicalists: propaganda groups and networks of militants. We see these as two distinct roles that organisations can fulfil. This could be attempted as a single organisation – as is the case with the SF’s current attempts to operate a dual structure of locals and industrial networks – or separate organisations, each focusing on its own role. We will elaborate our preference in the following ‘how we see it’ section, for now it is sufficient to understand that within a given type of organisation there can be distinct roles. We do not find it useful to refer to any kind of minority organisation - even an industrial/workplace one - as a union as in English in particular this has the connotations of mass organisations, for which we reserve the term.
Minority, non-permanent organisations
This type of organisation essentially mirrors minority/permanent ones, except that they will be created out of the needs of the class struggle at given times and places rather then being something we could have a general strategy for building. Examples would be the Friends of Durruti as a hybrid propaganda group/network of militants, and arguably workplace groups like McDonalds Workers Resistance,the informal social networks of ‘faceless resistance’ described by the Swedish communist group Kämpa Tillsammans,here." or some of the groups of anti-war activists that formed during the upsurge in anti-war sentiments in 2002. On account of their varied and non-permanent nature the only strategic approach to such organisations we can offer is to support them where they form and to try and create them in our own workplaces or localities as and when conditions permit.
Mass, non-permanent organisations
Mass, non-permanent organisations are a product of a certain level of class struggle, and therefore they cannot simply be built piecemeal by recruitment. For us, these organisations are the only type that are potentially revolutionary, as they are the mass expression of heightened class conflict. The organisations we can build in the present are the pro-revolutionary, minority ones, which can network, propagandise and agitate to develop the class struggle and give it anarcho-syndicalist forms as it develops. We think failure to recognise the fundamental difference between mass revolutionary organisations and minority pro-revolutionary organisations can only lead to practical confusion and demoralisation. Only if we recognise the relationship of organisation to class struggle can we be clear about what is possible and practical in the here and now and also how this gets us closer to the mass, revolutionary unions we want to see (more on which in the following section ‘how we see it’).
Reprise
It must be borne in mind that these four organisational types are to a certain extent idealised ones. In reality, groups exist that are in fact combinations of them. However these ideal types represent real tensions. For instance the paradox of a mass, directly democratic revolutionary organisation in times when the majority of workers are not pro-revolutionary places real limits on the size of attempts to create revolutionary unions in the here and now. Take for example the split between the Spanish CNT and the CGT over participation in state-run class collaborationist works councils.
The departure of the Swedish SAC from the International Workers Association (IWA) for similar reasons also reflects this paradox: internal democracy in a mass organisation when the majority of workers are not pro-revolutionary means the organisation has to sacrifice either internal democracy or its revolutionary principles – either way breaking with anarcho-syndicalism - the only other alternative being implausibly successful internal education to turn all members into pro-revolutionaries. Furthermore, the very co-existence of revolutionary organisations with the state is a necessarily unstable, temporary situation of dual power, they either make a revolution, are repressed, or accommodate themselves to legal existence as a regularised trade union.
Consequently while the organisational types we have described are not definitive of all actually-existing organisations, they do demonstrate the distinct types that exist and the tensions present within organisations that try to combine them. The paradox is only resolved with increased levels of class struggle and class consciousness – hence revolutionary unions are necessarily non-permanent products of struggle, and attempts to maintain them beyond the struggle of which they are an expression will see them lapse into a counter-revolutionary role. Without militant struggle they couldn’t but become organs for the representation of workers within capitalism, not the ultimate abolition of the working class.
OUR NOTION OF REVOLUTION
"A libertarian communist economy, a system without the market and where everyone has equal rights to have their needs met, has always been the aim of anarcho-syndicalists. Workers' self-management would amount to little in a world of inequality with decisions being dictated by the market."
– Solidarity Federation (2003)
Anarcho-syndicalists are libertarian communists. Without this communist perspective, anarcho-syndicalism would amount to little more than democratic trade unionism for a self-managed capitalism. Communists recognise that capitalism is not simply an undemocratic mode of management, but a mode of production. Making it more democratic doesn’t make it any more responsive to human needs so long as money, commodity production and exchange persist. Consequently, against Rudolph Rocker’s classical position quoted earlier in this pamphlet, our notion of revolution is not simply the taking over of production in order to self-manage it democratically, but a simultaneous process of communisation – restructuring social production around human need.
This entails not the liberation of the working class envisaged by Rocker, but our abolition as a class and with it the negation of all classes. It also implies not the democratisation of work but its abolition as a separate sphere of human activity. Much activity - waged or not - that is potentially rewarding in itself is reduced to repetitive, alienating work by the requirements of capital accumulation. We don’t want democratically self-managed alienation, but its abolition. Furthermore - and this is of practical import to anarcho-syndicalists – whole sectors of the economy need to be abolished altogether, while those that remain need to be radically transformed in terms of the division of labour and the nature of productive activity itself.
This is significant, since while for example mass assemblies of call centre or financial services workers will likely be a part of any revolutionary upsurge, outbound call centres and finance have no place in a libertarian communist society. In parts of the UK these sectors account for nearly half of all employment. But at some point these assemblies would be deciding to dissolve themselves as part of the process of reorganising production around human needs, a process which constitutes social revolution. This once again demonstrates the limitations of the classical approach stressing the goal of self-management alone and reaffirms the need to state clearly and unequivocally that we are communists and that social revolution is a process of communisation.
HOW WE SEE IT
"We want a society based on workers' self-management, solidarity, mutual aid and libertarian communism. That society can only be achieved by working class organisations based on the same principles - revolutionary unions (...) Revolutionary unions are means for working people to organise and fight all the issues - both in the workplace and outside."
– Solidarity Federation Constitution (2005)
As we have seen, an anarcho-syndicalist union isn’t just a really democratic trade union, but an altogether different beast with an altogether different purpose. Permanent mass organisations such as trade unions exist as things which organise workers. By contrast, the revolutionary unions advocated by anarcho-syndicalists are an expression of a process of workers’ self-organisation at its higher points. Therefore if we want to see these organisations, we have to agitate to build the class struggle itself, and for it to take these forms as and when class militancy develops sufficiently. ‘Building the union’ per se literally makes no sense, and represents a fetishism of form that forgets that the form can only ever be an expression of content, of class struggle.
For us, a revolutionary union is necessarily non-permanent because it is an expression of a given wave of class struggle. It cannot outlive the struggle of which it is an expression without becoming something fundamentally different, something counter-revolutionary, precisely because anarcho-syndicalist unions are defined by militant participation, direct action, solidarity and rank-and-file control. The particular form such unions entail is mass assemblies open to all workers (minus scabs and managers), and mandated recallable delegates forming delegate councils to co-ordinate the struggle. Federation by region and/or industry would also be advised as the numbers of such assemblies grew.
In order to develop the class struggle in a direction where such revolutionary unions are possible, we see two distinct organisational roles to enable anarcho-syndicalists to engage in direct action in the here-and-now. These are libertarian communist propaganda groups (of which anarcho-syndicalist propaganda groups are a subset), and networks of militants (of which industrial networks are a subset, on which we will focus).
In contrast to a platformist ‘general union of anarchists’ or left communist ‘single proletarian party’ we take a more pluralist approach to propaganda groups. While we are opposed to needless duplication of effort and resources, we are also opposed to the false unity that often accompanies attempts to unite everyone into one single political organisation. If there are real political differences between groups, they should organise independently. This does not however preclude practical co-operation on concrete projects of common interest. Consequently, while we clearly believe strongly in our ideas and seek to persuade others of them, with regard to propaganda groups we advocate an approach of non-sectarian pluralism and fraternal co-operation wherever possible to spread libertarian communist ideas and develop the class struggle.
In terms of propaganda, our goal is twofold: both to win other pro-revolutionaries to our positions and tactics, and to promote anarcho-syndicalist tactics and libertarian communist ideas amongst the wider class. The most obvious means of the former is the production of pamphlets and engaging in debates with the wider pro-revolutionary milieu – if we are confident in our ideas we should not fear an open confrontation of them with others. The latter goal of spreading our ideas amongst the wider class entails activities like producing and distributing strike bulletins on picket lines or distributing propaganda at workplaces facing redundancies, as well as maintaining accessible online information and holding public meetings.
As to industrial networks, we see membership of these as less determined by ideas and more by economic position (being a militant in a particular industry). Of course a level of theoretical and tactical agreement is required – networks are not apolitical - but we do not see this as being as high as for propaganda groups. For example it would be foolish not to organise with other militants because they have a different understanding of revolution, or are yet to be convinced of its necessity, but nonetheless support direct action, mass meetings and rank-and-file control of struggles.
Consequently we believe membership of a political organisation should not be a precondition of joining an industrial network as it represents an unnecessary barrier to the establishment and growth of such networks. Therefore we see the development of such networks as a concrete project for practical co-operation with other pro-revolutionary groups and non-aligned individuals who also see the need for them. The role of these networks would be to produce industrially specific propaganda and agitate industrially for direct action, solidarity and rank-and-file control. In the immediate term this means invisible, ‘faceless resistance’, but the goal is to foster open conflict controlled by mass meetings of all workers.
This may seem to represent a separation of political and economic organisation alien to anarcho-syndicalism. We do not agree. Both organisational roles address both ‘economic’ and ‘political’ issues of interest to the class, whether wages and conditions or border controls and the availability of abortions. The only separation is one which is a material fact of capitalist society – we share an economic position with fellow workers who may well be militant without sharing all our political ideas. We simply say this should not be a barrier to common action, only that it should be recognised and organisations structured accordingly. We believe the propaganda group/industrial network roles are a means of achieving this.
Finally, we should say that the list of activities given as examples for each type of organisation is not exhaustive. There are for example times when either type could engage in forms of direct action either to support its members or to support other workers in struggle who for whatever reason cannot take certain forms of action themselves.London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP) would also be an example of a group that engages in direct action both outside the workplace and beyond just propaganda." The possibilities thrown up by the class struggle cannot all be known in advance, and it would be foolish to try and prescribe exactly and exhaustively what each organisation should do. Instead, we seek only to describe the kinds of organisation that can advance the class struggle and move us closer to libertarian communism.
SOLIDARITY FEDERATION INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The Solidarity Federation seeks to create a militant opposition to the bosses and the state, controlled by the workers themselves. Its strategy can apply equally to those in the official trade unions who wish to organise independently of the union bureaucracy and those who wish to set up other types of self-organisation.
Rank and file control
Decisions should be made collectively. This means they are made by mass meetings, not by officials in union offices. These mass meetings include all those in the workplace, regardless of union membership. It will not, however, include scabs or managers.
Anyone we elect to negotiate with management should have a mandate from the workforce that gives them clear guidance on what is and is not acceptable. Mass meetings of workers need to be able to recall all delegates.
Direct action
Direct action at work means strikes, go-slows, working-to-rule, occupations and boycotts. We are opposed to the alternative which is 'partnership' with bosses. Workers can only win serious concessions from management when industrial action is used or when bosses fear it might be.
Solidarity
Solidarity with other workers is the key to victory. Workers should support each others' disputes despite the anti-trade union laws. We need to approach other workers directly for their support. 'Don't Cross Picket Lines!'
Control of funds
Strike funds need to be controlled by the workers themselves. Officials will refuse to fund unlawful solidarity action. Union bureaucrats use official backing and strike pay to turn action on and off like a tap.
Unions use a large proportion of their political funds on sponsoring parliamentary candidates. Backing the Labour Party is not in the interests of workers. We should also not fall into the trap of backing so-called 'socialist' candidates. The Parliamentary system is about working class people giving up power and control, not exercising it.
Social change
The interests of the working class lie in the destruction of capitalist society. The whole of the wealth of society is produced by the workers. However, a portion of this is converted into profits for the shareholders and business people who own the means of production. When workers make wage demands, they are simply trying to win a bigger share of what is rightfully their own.
This means that trade union organisation around traditional bread and butter issues is not enough on its own, although it is vital. As well as a structure of mass meetings and delegates there also needs to be a specifically anarcho-syndicalist presence in any workplace organisation. This will necessarily involve only a minority of workers in the present time. The role of anarcho-syndicalist militants is not to control the workplace organisation but to put forward an anarcho-syndicalist perspective in the meetings of the workplace organisation and attempt to gain broad support for our aims and principles, through propaganda work.
Preamble
Solidarity Federation's ultimate aim is a self-managed, stateless society based on the principle of from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. It is a society where we are no longer just used as a means to an end by bosses wanting to make money from our labour.
In the medium term and as an essential forerunner to such a society, SolFed promotes and seeks to initiate anarcho-syndicalist unions. To this end, SolFed seeks to create a militant opposition to the bosses and the state, controlled by the workers themselves. Its strategy can apply equally to those in the official trade unions who wish to organise independently of the union bureaucracy and those who wish to set up other types of self-organisation.
Details of the strategy
Mass meetings should be seen as an alternative structure to official union structures that are dominated by full-time bureaucrats. Decisions are made collectively in these assemblies. The work of these assemblies in different workplaces should be co-ordinated by delegate councils.
In the most militant workforces regular mass meetings will be held and this is obviously the ideal we are aiming at. This may not be possible in other workplaces where it will only be possible to organise such meetings when a dispute arises.
We need a three-pronged approach to the business of actually setting up an independent organisation at work.
1.In a workplace with a recognised TUC union, an SF member would join the union but promote an anarcho-syndicalist strategy. This would involve organising workplace assemblies to make collective decisions on workplace issues. However, workers will still be likely to hold union cards here to avoid splits in the workplace between union members and non-union members.
2.In a non-unionised workplace, independent unions, based on the principle of collective decision-making, should be set up wherever possible.
3.In a non-unionised workplace, that is difficult to organise due to a high turnover of staff or a large number of temps, we should just call workers assemblies when a dispute arises.
SF members will also undertake anarcho-syndicalist propaganda work in each scenario. The principles of our industrial strategy would apply to all three approaches.
Russian-language version of the article here:http://revsoc.org/archives/4644#more-4644
среда, 18 августа 2010 г.
CrimethInk: Policy for those some are too bored
The class war, Marxism and anarchism, talk about revolution - all this is terribly boring. We need a revolution lifestyle. All the old movement should be forgotten, now considered to be revolutionary to steal from the shops, eat food from dustbin and live in the squat. Those who used to be called homeless people, and there is very real revolutionaries. Such tactics offer us the guys from CrimethInk and for them this is repeated thousands of young people.
The overthrow of capitalism is postponed for later. Now you can live on the margins of capitalism and eat his garbage. Damn, that everything that surrounds us is working. For Crimethinc they obviously idiots and ordinary citizens who do not know how to live. Millions of workers, obviously, like hunched all day at work, if they still do it. Things are quite different from the middle-class teenagers, they knew how not to get bored.
And if it starts some real proletarian movement, Crimethinc and sub-cultural always remain on the sidelines. This is evident here in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), where a DIY-concerts, walking hundreds of people who consider themselves anarchists, but in actions against point construction or actions in support of a strike could be seen only a few of them. Yes, and the proletarians do not start interest in politics Crimethinc. They tried, they would offer a large family to live in the squat, be freegans and not go to work. Or immigrants, who extort money cops, protest, playing in diy-hardcore band.
The revolution will be the feast of the oppressed masses. Feast of people taking their lives into their hands. But the revolution to victory, must pass and the hard way during the reaction. Yes, the proletarians are not struggling for their rights and not much interested in revolutionary ideas. But even now, for many more interesting and more relevant some "boring" Ideas on the topic actual libertarian- communism newspaper, than the idea Crimethinc.
When the workers stage a strike on their own or students occupy the university, then participated in such things is what brings joy. Much more than a subcultural "frenzy". The main thing is to believe in their strength. But while subcultural calling people to eat at garbage dumps, people will not believe in their strength, and nationalists, liberals or prof-boss, consider any policy of boring and not believe in the possibility of revolution. Substituting a revolution against capitalism, poverty alleviation at the side of capitalism, Crimethinc trying to perpetuate both poverty and capitalism.
About the policy, which is terribly bourgeois (and no less boring), read the article below.
Your politics are bourgeois as fuck
Warren An Exerpt - Anarkismo.net
There are two ways out of capitalism, revolution or death. Anybody who tells you otherwise is simply wrong. The US based sub-cultural cult "Crimethinc" (CWC) who mix anarchism with bohemian drop-out lifestyles and vague anti-civilisation sentiment would have you believe that capitalism is something from which you can merely remove yourself by quitting work, eating from bins and doing whatever "feels good". They carry on the legacy of prize-idiot Abbie Hoffman, printing books and zines which fetishise scams, petty crime and useless activist/punk sub-cultural activity like food not bombs, squatting, etc. They are anarchists by name only with little relevance to the rest of the anarchist milieu and no class analysis, let's venture into their secret underground "anarchy club".
Many aspects of crimethinc reference the Situationist Internationale and a large chunk of their ideas are based around the Situationist concept "the transformation of everyday life". The Situationists were heavily influenced by Marx and CWC are heavily influenced by American consumer culture it would seem. The call to transform everyday is a call to smash the current exploitative system, to participate in the class struggle, an ongoing historical conflict between the proletariat and the ruling class. Crimethinc substitute this class struggle with a teenage individualistic rebellion based on having fun now. Shoplifting, dumpster diving, quitting work are all put forward as revolutionary ways to live outside the system but amount to nothing more than a parasitic way of life which depends on capitalism without providing any real challenge. The arrogance of middle class kids (just like the hippies) supposing to change by world by roughing it as "poor" people for a few years is captured perfectly in the quote on the back cover of their book evasion.
"Poverty, unemployment, homelessness - if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!"
Condescending, privileged, middle class crap. The only people who could think that poverty is in any way fun are wealthy kids playing at being poor for a few years, the daily reality of poverty, unemployment and homelessness for the average person is very serious and something anarchists should always organise against rather than mock.
The reality of the situation is that you can't boycott your way out of capitalism, dropping out of the system is never going to bring it down if anything you just re-enforce the system by recuperating people’s alienation and desire for revolution by selling them a new lifestyle under the same system. Capitalism is a system of coercion and control, we don’t work to support the system, we work because we need food and shelter and healthcare and the only way to get that under capitalism is with money. The only way we can get money is by selling our labour - the alternative is to rot, that’s Capitalism. I don't want to feed my kids out of a dumpster or have to scam free healthcare if I get cancer, it's not appealing or practical. There's nothing revolutionary about using your white, middle-class, western privilege to remove yourself from the system at the expense of those who remain trapped in it. None of us are free until we all are.
This idolisation of the grifter and scam as a somehow revolutionary tactic has led their followers, and they are followers they certainly don't have much say in the running of the sites and the shop, the informal organisational structure "we're all crimethinc" enforces this, to be mostly bored teenage boys. A quick browse around crimethinc.net will show you this. The more worrying aspect is the "us against the world" mindset many of these youths have. Many view people who work regular jobs as an enemy complicit in the capitalist system, a system they don't fully understand and which crimethinc’s literature never fully explains. They have an embarrassingly liberal interpretation of capital and the struggle against it,
"By your 'support the working class' logic, I guess y'all should feel guilty every time ya boycott any megacrop like Wal-Mart - after all, they've got "working class" clerks workin' there too" – DizzIE
In this quote from a row over a scam to rob tourists (or neo-colonialists as some bizarrely called them), a crimethincer shows up the dangerous lack of understanding of class struggle. Boycotts of multinationals, much like drop-out lifestyles, will do little to bring about the fall of Capitalism which is a social relationship based on wage labour. I do not wish to deny them their right to be drop-outs and live out of bins so long as they realise they will change nothing by living like this. An inflated sense of self importance has convinced them that their chosen path is righteous and all others are brainwashed by the system or are revolutionary beauraucrats.
One of crimethinc’s more recent publications "recipes for disaster:an anarchist cookbook", is indicative of the massive problems with them. The book is a somewhat interesting list of pranks, scams and activist information. Proclaimed as the follow up to "Days of war, Nights of love" this book has many serious shortcomings. Recipes (little more than DIY guides) range from how to organise a black bloc to gynecology, Squatting, and “how to make a bicycle into a record player”. An eclectic mix of information, most of which is crap the rest of which is useless without political understanding. This is meant to be the practice where "days of war" was the theory but unfortunately DOW had no real theory beyond drop out and do what feels good. Organising a black bloc out of a handbook without any understanding of the social conditions which necessitate mass militant anarchist direct action is not just dangerous it's counter-productive to our entire movement. The book shies away from serious revolutionary information like how to organise a union in your workplace, how to organise at school, how to make contact and work with communities in struggle, how to break out of the activist ghetto, how to set up a social centre, how to provide prisoner support or how to support asylum seekers etc. All the activities amount to little more than activist busy-work, something to waste your time with while being a "drop-out", ease your social conscience and not have to do any hard work or compromise yourself by working with people who are complicit in the system. The Antifascist Action guide is well meaning but pathetic, it amounts to a bunch of kids masking up and getting their rocks off by confronting the cops before running off again. This is a common element throughout, these things are listed because they are exciting and dangerous and make you "feel good", not because they are effective forms of revolutionary organising.
Ramor Ryans review of Days of War.. is spot on and does not really need expanding on. DOW is massively plagirised, full of inaccurate and offensive accounts of radical history and tends to define things in very basic terms like good and bad without any solid ideas backing up most of their claims.
"Text, ideas, and graphics are borrowed and pilfered from the Stoke-Newington fanzine Vague, British graphic artist Clifford Harper, French situationist Raoul Vaneigem and indeed, the whole of the Situationist pantheon. They sack the archives of radical sub-culture to compound a falsehood, the basic premise of this book, that it is an instrument for “total liberation.” In reality, CrimethInc’s vision seldom rises above that of a suburban kid rebelling against authority. Mired in the punk rock and crusty sub-culture, the practical application of all this revolutionary theory is apparently realized by forming a band, fucking in a park, going vegan or—oh my God now we’re really fucking doing it!—giving out phony free tickets to the local cinema.9 It soon becomes clear that the real crime here is the way they plunder some of the finest and most invigorating ideas from the end of the 20th century, and render them dull and inchoate." – Ramor Ryan
When thousands of french students recently occupied their universities and trashed their cities in opposition to the introduction of the CPE law one crimethincer had this to say about the organised students;
"When I looked at the situation in France, I often thought that they were not enough dumpster divers collectives!"
What purpose or relevance this person thinks a dumpster diving collective would have served to a mass radical movement beyond getting some old sandwiches which could be looted anyway is beyond me. When mass struggles emerge crimethincers are of course thin on the ground, mass struggle means working with squares and allowing workers to be part of their revolutionary subculture, which just wont do. The book “Anarchy in the age of dinosaurs” published under Crimethinc by the Furious George collective (who each deserve a bullet for crimes against anarchism) is short and poorly written arguing against the idea of mass organisation and for “chaos” and “butterfly wings”, apparently.
“"Folk Anarchy is the name we have given to the arrow aimed at the heart of every dinosaur. We are replacing the mass movement with a scrappy multitude of mutineers, gypsies, sprawling shanties, thieves in the knight and mad scientists”
The lack of any critical analysis and focus on spontaneity are serious shortcomings for crimethinc which lead me to believe they do not believe in revolution and are quite possibly happy to be the kids living on the "edge" of Capitalism, a system whose excess supports their drop-out lifestyles anyway. This would explain why crimethinc have no theory for revolution, how to build to overthrow this system and how to make sure that once we do we hold on to our gains, how to organise a post-revolutionary world so that we don't repeat the failures of the CNT and other historical precedents. A spontaneous revolution leaves the working class no means to defend itself from reactionaries and state socialists. Crimethinc call for a revolution in everyday lifestyles and not life, they seek to define a subculture of individualists who care only about themselves and those immediately around them. A revolution of restless and spoiled middle class Americans that is contemptuous of workers and organised anarchists because in them they see the greatest threat to their bourgeois lifestyles.
The supposedly self-critical analysis in crimethinc’s 10 year report never touched on their failures as listed here. Perhaps this is something these kids will address now and hopefully other anarchists will add to the debate. I spent a few years uncritically spewing out empty crimethinc rhetoric and wasting time with their ineffective tactics and don’t wish to see another generation fooled. I would urge all comrades to seriously consider the easy solutions being peddled by CWC. The world can’t wait while serious revolutionaries are side-tracked by poor ideas and poorer tactics.
“Our demands most moderate are – We only want the earth!” - James Connolly
Russian-language version of the article here:
Подписаться на:
Сообщения (Atom)
