This piece came to my attention recently, written by John
Molyneux of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) with help from other influential
members of the party in finalising it. A member of the SWP described it as a ‘solid
and comradely’ criticism of the anarchist tradition, whilst I agree with the
latter point that it at least attempts to deal with our political outlook
without the baseless slander that I have seen recently in some socialist publications. I think,
however many of his arguments are based on false assumptions and a seeming
misunderstanding of the anarchist tradition. ‘Anarchism: A Marxist Criticism’ has already been reviewed before,
with a favourable reading by the ResoluteReaderblog and a critique by D. Broder of The
Commune, this article aims to provide a further contribution to Broder’sobjections. Without going into the contradictions between many of Molyneux’s
points and his membership in the SWP (thanks to Broder making that point
clearly in his article), I will attempt to deal with Molyneux’s main points on
the State, Leadership and the Party, as well as partially dealing with the historical
examples he has used in the second half of his pamphlet. To make it clearer to
the reader, I base my critique on an anarchist communist analysis of class
society and the struggle ensuing from it.
Before dealing with those separate points I feel it would be
useful to tackle some of the assertions made in Molyneux’s introductory sections.
The author claims that anarchism is on the rise in our modern day struggles,
attributing his allegation to the use of ‘anarchist’ or autonomist-influenced
tactics such as direct democracy and a ‘blanket rejection of the State and
authority’ in the Occupation movements in Greece, Spain and elsewhere. However,
to my knowledge anarchism is still not on the rise to this extent, the adoption
of these tactics does not signify an increased popularity in anarchism because
these tactics are not intrinsic to anarchism. Even though the working class
struggle takes place primarily outside of established political organisations
in periods such as the one we are currently living in we would expect some
other members of our class to come over to our organisations with the purpose
of agitating for their set of beliefs. The growth in political organisations,
which can be interpreted as the desire in coalescing with other like-minded
individuals to defend and extend their livelihoods, is fundamentally tied to
the material condition people find themselves in. It comes as no surprise that
the Labour party has increased its membership by 65,000 people by the end of
2011 since the 2010 general election as workers return to social democracy in a
desperate attempt to defend the gains made by their predecessors. The existing
anarchist organisations have not increased its membership significantly however,
despite its apparent rise within the Occupation movements and the increase in
class struggle we have witnessed as a result of the austerity measures imposed
upon us by capital’s conservative, liberal and social democratic stooges.
Rather, if anarchism is perceived to be on the rise, it must only be because interest
in state-socialism is on the decline.
Molyneux makes another mistake in the early sections of this
pamphlet by claiming that ‘autonomism is really closer to anarchism than it is
to Marxism’, based on the assumption that a rejection of the traditional organs
and mode of struggle that leftists today still embrace means that it is not
part of the Marxist tradition. But this is a failure to understand the
difference between the anarchist and Marxist traditions that arose out of the
split in the International Workingmen’s Association in 1872. You can reduce the
main differences between Marxism and anarchism as it developed to the question
of agitation in social democracy, the national question and unions (before
capitalism entered, what Rosa Luxemburg called its ‘crisis of senility’ and
what the modern day Left Communists call capitalist decadence) and the role of
the State. A rejection of the party question and/or of seeking to place a ‘revolutionary’
leadership in unions in favour of an autonomous form of class struggle is not a
divergence from Marxism, as can be seen by some proponents of the Councillist
tradition of the early 20th century.
The State
To his credit, Molyneux still holds onto a communist
conception of the State, that which recognises that its use is in the
maintenance of class divisions and therefore to achieve communism, a classless
society, the State must be non-existent. Although Molyneux does makes some
significant shortfalls, he begins by describing the State as ‘special
bodies of men (and women) exercising legal and physical power over society as a
whole’, an insufficient description of the State to start off with which works
to his advantage in his following argument in defence of the maintenance of the
State in the transition to communism following a working class revolution. The
Trotskyist line on the State is then mentioned in State and Revolution, through Lenin’s advocacy of the smashing up
of the old State machinery and replacing it with ‘a new one consisting of an
organisation of the armed workers, after the type of the Commune’. Like Lenin,
Molyneux draws similarities between this new workers’ State and that which
existed during the short span of the Paris Commune of 1871. This new State
would somehow ‘wither away’ once ‘socialism has definitely established itself
internationally, and classes and class struggle have disappeared and production
has reached a level where the necessities of life are provided for all and
where the habit of work for the collective good has become second nature’.
Here we see Molyneux’s original description of the State
coming to his defence. In failing to mention the State having come into being and
existing only out of a necessity to defend the abstract concept of property
rights (whether that be the rights of a feudal lord to his land, or that of the
modern day capitalist to their factories, offices and shops, or the State’s intermediary
dominance over the same productive forces), and in our time also as a defence
of the wage labour-capital accumulation relationship, it could simply be argued
that these ‘special bodies of men (and women)’ exercise legal and physical control
over society with the goal of a classless society in mind. In failing to
mention the condition of property relations which is intrinsic to the role of
the State, Molyneux can easily continue with his argument to claim that these
special bodies of men and women are simply the chosen representatives of the
working class to direct the transition to a classless society. But how can you gradually
transition to communism, which is a society devoid of property rights
altogether (as is implied by the idea that the State will simply ‘wither away’)
when the very economic conditions which run in contradiction to it still exists
and is maintained by that centralised set of governmental institutions in a
given territory with a monopoly on violence in said area?
Molyneux attempts to weave around this dilemma by asserting
that the working class will have democratic control over the representatives,
who they choose to govern them on their behalf, and will actively participate
in the defence of their newfound society. But this ignores the fundamental
nature of the State which will be to centralise its control over society around
a specific polity. The Paris Commune of 1871 is used in Molyneux’s argument, with
a supposedly democratic military and political governing structure where
representatives were paid a ‘workers’ wage’. The 1917 Russian revolution is
another example Molyneux draws upon, but in both circumstances we see the flaws
in his argument.
Paris 1871 was far from being a working class government, of
which 2/3 of the political Commune was represented by Jacobin republicans and
the other 1/3 was shared between members of the International, oppositional
conservatives and moderates. The wage of the representatives of the Commune, which
was supposed to represent this workers’ wage was capped at 6,000 francs. But
the average annual salary of an ironfounder was 1,095 francs which was double
the pay of those in service with the National Guard, the workers at the Louvre armaments
factory would have earned on average 2,190 francs (judged on the basis of them
working 10 hour days), female seamstresses would have earned around 730 francs
annually doing piecework. A wage of 6,000 francs, although that was the maximum
it was capped at could hardly be called an ‘average’ wage. But even the Commune
rejected minimum calls by the Louvre engineering workers for a pay increase for
dangerous front line work.
Additionally, as the 1917 Russian revolution showed, the
State had to consolidate its own power over the rest of society in order to
ensure that it could be the force which would secure the transition to
communism on behalf of the working class with the creation of the secret police
in December 1917 which not only targeted bourgeois counterrevolutionary
elements but also of anarchists, the right social revolutionists (and later
also the left faction) and Mensheviks, the withering away of the factory committees and the power of the soviets, that organ of working class rule which
arose during the revolutionary period (which Molyneux believed would form the ‘core
of the new workers’ State’), and the further institutionalisation of the armed
forces, and this happened before the ‘degeneration’ into Stalinism! Furthermore,
where was Marx’s ‘revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system”’
ever implemented in any of these examples, or in the programme of the SWP? To
continue maintaining the wages system is to continue to manage capital
accumulation and the inherent contradictions present in this economic
condition. Thus, because the party sees itself as the spearhead of the
revolution to guide the inexperienced and naïve working class to its
emancipation through its control of the State, where the working class reacts
in the same fashion as they had done under a bourgeois administration as a
result of the same economic conditions preserved by this new supposedly workers’
government, the State will have to be utilised in order to defend the
transition to communism, against the working class itself!
Moreover,
we are given a hypothetical situation to consider which would seemingly prove
the necessity for the existence of the State;
‘There are many historical precedents to
prove this, but let us take a hypothetical example. Let us assume a revolution
in France which was met by a right wing uprising based in Marseilles, combined
with incursions in the North East by right wing bands supported by the German
and American governments. To defend itself the revolution would have to decide
on what forces to concentrate in the North East and what to send to Marseilles
as well as how to supply them and arm them. This would have to be a national
decision made by a national government. Failure to coordinate such
decisions would simply be a recipe for defeat.’
Whilst it is
true that there must be a centralised and well coordinated effort to conduct an
effective military campaign to defend the gains of the revolution in this
hypothetical, doing so does not equate to forming a new, or maintaining the old
structure of the State. After all, as has been established, the State is not
simply a body of people who have ‘legal and physical’ power over society but is
more importantly the defender of property rights. To forget this fact is to
forget the historical development of the State and its role. Without the
existence of property rights, the State does not exist because there is no
economic base for the perpetuation of its existence. The networking of
struggles and of productive and distributive efforts does not equate to the
existence of the State, if this were not true then a classless society is truly
unobtainable unless we were to revert back to primitivism. But as we know in
order to keep up with the demands of our planet and to continue to maintain in
existence this population level (which is ever increasing), we must continue to
manage production and distribution in a global effort which requires a
coordinated and centralised economy, even in a classless society. But as
mentioned previously, as Molyneux’s party lacks the desire to abolish the wages
system in the transitional period it seeks to continue to manage a capitalist
mode of production and therefore a State must inevitably exist in their transitional
period in order to defend the property rights which they do not seek to get rid
of.
Leadership
The conclusion of the argument on the State may have led
some to wonder what the anarchist position on authority or leadership was. Is
it not that anarchism rejects leaders, that it sees all authority as
destructive and unrepresentative of the individual person within the collective
of a group? Molyneux’s critique of anarchism certainly suggests this to be the
case, writing that ‘anarchists frequently proclaim their rejection of the idea
of leadership’ but then correctly attributing leadership qualities to many of
anarchism’s theoretical contributors. There are many people who consider
themselves anarchists who hold an outright objection to leadership and
authority, but this objection is most likely very ill-thought out or purposefully
and absolutely dishonest and this following argument will apply to them as much
as it would to the state socialist.
In Bakunin’s What isAuthority, replying to a self-directed question of whether he rejected all
authority stated; ‘In the matter of boots, I refer to the
authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult
that of the architect or the engineer.’ Furthermore, anarchist organisations
have not shied away from deferring responsibilities onto individuals, which in
turn forces those individuals to take on a role of leadership of sorts in the
same way that the theoretical contributions of anarchists in the past have
given them a credibility amongst the working class movement to be referred to
on the matter of strategy. It is the latter example which Molyneux objects to
on the basis that informal leaderships mean that the figures in question are
unaccountable to those who look to them to provide direction. But in this
informal relationship these ‘leaders’ do not have any responsibility to their
crowd, they are elected and deselected by the movement of feet. The only leadership
they comprise is one of ideology and those who follow their directive do so on
their own prerogative, rather than being obliged to do so as a result of the
will of the majority within a collective. For example, upon the outbreak of the
First World War, when Petr Kropotkin sided with the Allied forces against
Imperial Germany many other internationalist anarchists, such as Errico
Malatesta, a long time friend of Kropotkin’s, distanced themselves from him and
criticised his objectionable positions.
The formalisation of administrative tasks
where necessary before and during the revolutionary period should be done so
that those who hold a position of responsibility in a formal structure are held
accountable and their role does not come attached with any privileges. If
anything, their role would instead become a burden, the only payment being the
recognition that you perform a certain important task and is held in high
esteem for that reason. Within political organisations the position of a person
in such a position should always be reviewed and challenged, their actions
should be open to all members and so must any development in the field they are
responsible for. Such a position should not be one of representation however as
this is a dangerous formula to follow, no one individual should be able to
represent a group of others as a healthy organisation will always have a
divergence of opinions on most matters and no one person can sufficiently
represent all views. The mandating of positions (of individuals and of groups) to
a delegate – rather than a representative - is acceptable and an individual can
obviously represent their own feelings towards a matter. This position does not
only apply to political organisations, but also to be applied to wider society.
The Party
The question of leadership is not simply one which concerns
merely individuals but also has wider implications when dealing with the class
struggle in general. It is the anarchist conception that the working class is
the only social force capable of creating a communism. It is the only group
within society which is naturally antagonised by its relationship to the
productive forces of society, the most determinate factor for the evolution of
human society. If there was an absence of political organisations, the working
class will still be pushed towards seeking their emancipation from the
conditions of capitalism. Revolutionary groups and ideology owes their
existence to the historic struggle by the working class in an attempt to ferment
a strategy for attack and to deal with the problems encountered by past
revolutionary attempts. It is not the revolutionary group which creates
revolution, nor is it the revolutionary group which is most successful at
agitating for it, hence the spontaneity of, and the total surprise revolutionary
organisations find themselves in, of practically every past example of a
revolutionary attempt.
There is however a distinction between simply revolutionary
groups, and parties. The latter seek to direct the movement of the working
class through consolidating power here and there (in unions, through
governments, student bodies, etc.) in
formal leadership structures. As Molyneux puts it, this is done because the
working class develops ‘unevenly’ because of capitalist social dominance
through forms such as the education system, the media and religion. Whilst this
is true, it demonstrates a complete lack of confidence in fellow members of the
working class who have not come over to a specific revolutionary ideology to ‘reorganise
and regulate’ their own struggle and the productive forces thereafter. The history
of vanguardists has always been an example of impatience, to them the
revolution occurs when the party seems fit and ready to take control of society
and administer it on behalf of the working class. I do not have to make this
argument myself as many before have done so already. The Dutch council
communist, Anton Pannekoek wrote of parties in is pamphlet Party and Class;
‘The belief in parties
is the main reason for the impotence of the working class; therefore we avoid
forming a new party—not because we are too few, but because a party is an
organization that aims to lead and control the working class. In opposition to
this, we maintain that the working class can rise to victory only when it
independently attacks its problems and decides its own fate. The workers should
not blindly accept the slogans of others, nor of our own groups but must think,
act, and decide for themselves. This conception is on sharp contradiction to
the tradition of the party as the most important means of educating the
proletariat. Therefore many, though repudiating the Socialist and Communist
parties, resist and oppose us. This is partly due to their traditional
concepts; after viewing the class struggle as a struggle of parties, it becomes
difficult to consider it as purely the struggle of the working class, as a
class struggle.
[…]
As the working class does not seem capable of revolution, is it
not necessary that the revolutionary vanguard, the party, make the revolution
for it? And is this not true as long as the masses willingly endure capitalism?
Against this, we raise the question: what force can such a party
raise for the revolution? How is it able to defeat the capitalist class? Only
if the masses stand behind it. Only if the masses rise and through mass
attacks, mass struggle, and mass strikes, overthrow the old regime. Without the
action of the masses, there can be no revolution.
Two things can follow. The masses remain in action: they do not go
home and leave the government to the new party. They organize their power in
factory and workshop and prepare for further conflict in order to defeat
capital; through the workers' councils they establish a form union to take over
the complete direction of all society—in other words, they prove, they are not
as incapable of revolution as it seemed. Of necessity then, conflict will arise
with the party which itself wants to take control and which sees only disorder
and anarchy in the self-action of the working class. Possibly the workers will
develop their movement and sweep out the party. Or, the party, with the help of
bourgeois elements defeats the workers. In either case, the party is an
obstacle to the revolution because it wants to be more than a means of
propaganda and enlightenment; because it feels itself called upon to lead and
rule as a party.’
Molyneux makes another mistake
here by claiming that anarchists who do not reject organisation are in fact forming
their own distinct anarchist parties under another name but fail to recognise
it as such. If we were to only take the party as an organisation that exists as
part of a movement then this would be correct, however vanguard parties seek to
consolidate power in their own hands for the reason that it is believed that
they hold the correct analysis of society and how to transform it to its
ideal. Rather than tackling the questions
and developing your strategy around the problems which inevitably arise out of
class conflict when they appear (as they will all be different to some extent),
that is of taking the class struggle as a living, breathing movement for the evolution
of society, the party will seek to maintain order so as to wean the class off
capitalism and gradually direct it towards communism, becoming unnecessary as
the process of transition continues. As Pannekoek stated, the self-action of
the working class is what is to be feared by the party, not because it is
unorganised (this is not necessarily true; the class will create its own organs
of struggle in the revolutionary period which represent the forms by which the
new society will be governed and production managed) but because it will
represent a threat to the righteous path which the party has in mind for them. Anarchist
groups do not seek to head a State, the working class movement or take control
of the traditional (and reformist) means of class struggle, such as unions, and
so cannot be considered a party in this sense. Although if they have any class
analysis, these anarchists will almost certainly involve themselves in such traditional
workers’ organisations as that is where the militant working class are located,
only to use them as a means of possessing collective power in pre-revolutionary
times but also to break workers away from these restrictive and controlling organs
when push comes to shove.
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