Anarchisme et marxisme

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Even though anarchist communism and Marxism are two very different political philosophies, there is some similarity between the methodology and ideology of some anarchists and some Marxists, and the history of the two have often been intertwined.

The International Workingmen's Association, at its founding, was an alliance of socialist groups, including both anarchists and Marxists. Both sides had a common aim (stateless communism) and common political opponents (conservatives and other right-wing elements). But each was critical of the other, and the inherent conflict between the two groups soon embodied itself in an ongoing argument between Mikhail Bakunin, representative of anarchist ideas, and Karl Marx himself. In 1872, the conflict in the First International climaxed with the expulsion of Bakunin and those who had become known as the "Bakuninists" when they were outvoted by the Marx party at the Hague Congress.

Arguments surrounding the issue of the state

Nation States originated in Europe with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1649. Modern Political scientists define the "state" as a centralized, hierarchal, governing institution which maintains a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force", in keeping with the definition originally proposed by the German sociologist Max Weber in his 1918 essay Politics as a Vocation. This definition is considered standard and uncontroversial for virtually all schools of modern political thought except Marxism.

Marxism has a unique definition of the state: that the state is an organ of one class's repression of all other classes. To Marxists any state is intrinsically a dictatorship by one class over all others. Within this definition the idea of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" can mean anything from the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force by armed working people's councils, to a monopoly of force by a party composed of intellectuals claiming to be the leadership of the working people. Within Marxist theory, should the differentiation between classes disappear, so too will the state disappear.

Anarchists, by contrasts, accept the standard definition with the understanding that economic and political elites will always dominate the state, an assertion shared by most Realists and Liberals but disputed by Neo-Liberals who see the state as a barrier to the exercise of unrestrained elite power and by Marxists who see the state as a potentially useful tool that can be seized and used by the "vanguard" of the "proletariat".

For anarchists, this means that the ideology claimed by specific states - be they capitalist, fascist or communist - is largely irrelevant since all states are fundamentally violent and repress the working majority in favor of a ruling minority. Furthermore, Anarchists contend that the "Workers State" advocated by Marxists is a logical impossibility since as soon as any self-styled "vanguard" seizes that State they cease being workers (if they ever were) and become members of the "coordinating class". Anarchists disagree amongst themselves if democratic workers councils with a monopoly of violence constitutes a state or not.

In practical terms, this fundamental disagreement about the desirability of seizing the state can be boiled down to the question of if and how much violence is acceptable in order to achieve a successful revolution. Anarchists argue that all states are "illegitimate" because they all rely on systematic violence, and that while small scale violence and even targeted assassination of criminal elites may be useful or necessary in some circumstances (see propaganda by the deed) mass violence against civilians - such as that practiced by Lenin to crush the Krondstadt uprising, by Stalin in his infamous Pograms, or by Mao during the "Cultural Revolution" - is never acceptable or justifiable. Marxists disagree and counter that "the ends justify the means", so any amount of violence and bloodshed is justified in order to achieve their ideal workers State.

While Anarchists and Marxists both agree on the long-term desirability of a stateless Society (which Marx called "pure communism"), they have deep arguments about phases of a revolution between now and that ideal. Anarchists wish to "smash" the state, replacing it immediately with workers' councils, syndicates and other methods of organization that are decentralized and non-hierarchal. Marxists, in contrast, wish to "smash" the bourgeois state, but wish to replace it with a new kind of state run by the workers. This Marxist desire is often referred to as "seizing state power." These arguments are often seen as critical, because they involved the autonomy of workers councils, the existence of secret police, the legitimacy of terrorism and state terrorism as revolutionary tactics, and the transparency of justice.

The argument between these conceptions often hides arguments about whose ideas should lead the revolution, and thus have historically resulted in the use of mass violence by Marxist-dominated "workers states" against Anarchists and other revolutionaries. Examples include the mass arrest and execution of Anarchists and other non-bolshevick leftists during the Russian Revolution and the bloody repressiong of the Krondstadt uprising in particular, allegations that during the Spanish Civil War marxist militia members who were theoretically allied with anarchist militieas openned fire into the backs of anarchist troops as they charged the fascist trenches, the bloody repression of dissidants during the Chinese Revolution and the massacre of protesters at Tienamen Square by the Communist government, and the mass execution of anarchists and other dissidents ordered by Che Gueverra during the Cuban Revolution, to name just a few.

Marxists counter by claiming that anarchists are chronically disorganized and that their refusal to submit to the rule of "revolutionary" Marxist states or endorse state terrorism renders them counter-revolutionary. They further contend that if Anarchists were capable of winning revolutions they wouldn't keep getting butchered. Unsurprisingly, Anarchists disagree.

The issue of the state, and the idea of seizing the state for a party, brings up the issue of political parties, which also divides Anarchists and Marxists. In general, anarchists refuse to participate in governments, and so do not form political parties. Marxists, on the other hand, see political parties as tools for seizing power, which they believe is necessary to create any meaningful political change.

Anarchist and Marxist understandings of Class

Both Marxist and Anarchist class analyses are based on the idea that society is divided up into many different "classes", each with differing interests according to their material circumstance. The two differ, however, in where they draw the lines between these groups.

For Marxists, the two most relevant classes are the "bourgeoisie" (the business class) and the "proletarians" (industrial wage laborers). Marx believed that the unique historical circumstances of industrial workers would incite them to organize together and seize the state and the means of production from the business class, collectivize them, and create a classless society administered by and for workers. He explicitly dismissed peasants, agricultural workers, and the "lumpen-proletarians" - the "underclass" as incapable of creating revolution and argued that the social revolution, led by the Proletariat" was a historical and scientific certainty. Ironically, no Marxist revolution in any country has ever been led by "proletarians." Post-Marxist and neo-Marxist theories such as Leninism and Maoism seek to explain this as the result of Imperialism artificially raising the standards of living for industrial workers in developed capitalist nations, making them less likely to rebel, and leading to revolutions in poorer less developed nations with majority Peasant populations - such as Russia and China. Lenin further argued that Imperialism was thus ultimately a good thing because it brought advanced western technology to backward and primitive nations and would thus speed up the global industrialization process - and thus bring about the global revolution which Marx had predicted.

The anarchist class analysis predates Marxism, drawing its lineage from the early socialist movement. Anarchists argue that there are three “classes,” which have relevance to social change - not two. Roughly, these are the working class (which includes everyone whose labor is involved in producing and distributing goods as well as much of the so-called “service” industry), the coordinating class (which includes everyone whose labor is primarily concerned with “coordinating” and managing the labor of the working class), and the elite or “owning class,” (which derives its income from it’s control of wealth and resources). Since most Anarchists reject dialectics and historical materialism, Anarchists do not claim that revolution and the reorganization of society are "inevitable", only that they are desirable, and see all liberation movements by oppressed people as fundamentally legitimate, be they "proletarians", "peasants", indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, or cultural minorities (such as homosexuals) without needing to fit these movements into any predetermined "future history."

Anarchism further contends that Marxism fails, and will always fail, because it creates a dictatorship of the coordinating class and that "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a logical impossibility.

Key differences thus include the fact that Anarchists do not differentiate between peasants, lumpen, and proletarians and instead define all people who work for wage labor as members of the working class, regardless of occupation; and that Anarchists do differentiate between the economic and political elites who set policy and the business and government functionaries that carry those policies out whereas Marxists lump the two together.

Arguments concerning the method of historical materialism

Marxism uses a form of dialectical analysis of human societies called historical materialism. At the crux of historical materialist analysis is the idea that people find themselves in a predetermined material world, and act to produce changes upon that world within the limits of what changes they can conceive of. An example of historical materialism would be that feudal peasants would find themselves with a lord above them, and imagine religious, instead of political, solutions to the problem of their unfree status. Underlying these processes is an idea that contradictions and opposed social groups will naturally form and drive social progress.

Historical materialism is derived from a method of reasoning called dialectics. This method works from the assumption that any natural phenomenon is defined through contrast with other phenomena, that quantities can be viewed qualitatively, that precise understanding of imprecise phenomena is possible (comparable to many physical uncertainty principles). Dialectics can furthermore, Marx and his coworker Friedrich Engels argue, be applied to human society in the form of historical materialism, so that classes can be studied by using contrast between, for example, owner and worker, or by taking quantities to make qualities, such as translating uneven distribution of private property to show class disparity.

Anarchists use a wide variety of tools of social analysis and some anarchists see value in historical materialism as a tool for social analysis. The Irish Workers Solidarity Movement, for instance, makes agreeing with the historical materialist method's value a central point of unity. Most Anarchists, however, dismiss historical materialism as a psuedo-science based on untestable and unfalsifiable universal claims. Anarchists were among the firsts to criticise the dialectical materialist trend on this basis, and on the basis that it dehumanises social and political analysis and is not sustainable as a universal methodology.

Points of political commonality

Advocacy of Marxism and anarchism are not always incompatible. At the beginning of the 20th century many Marxists and anarchists were united within syndicalist movements for militant revolutionary trade unions (see: De Leonism, IWW). Many Marxists have participated honestly in anarchist revolutions, and many anarchists have participated honestly in Marxist revolutions. More over, a large number of political groups attempt a synthesis of Marxist and anarchist traditions with the aim of a liberated workers society. Examples could include Autonomist Marxism and Joseph Dietzgen.

Selected Bibliography

  1. REDIRECT Modèle:Wikipedia(traduit)
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