FAQAnar:H.3.13 - En quoi le socialisme d'État n'est-il que du capitalisme d'État ?

FAQ anarchiste

« L'anarchie c'est l'ordre moins le pouvoir »

H - Pourquoi les anarchistes s'opposent au socialisme d'État ?

Introduction H.1 - Les anarchistes se sont-ils toujours opposés au socialisme d'État ? Cliquer pour développer H.1.1 - Quelle était la critique de Bakounine du marxisme ? H.1.2 - Quelles sont les principales différences entre anarchistes et marxistes ? H.1.3 - Pourquoi les anarchistes souhaitent abolir définitivement l'État ? H.1.4 - Les anarchistes n'ont-ils "absolument aucune idée" de ce par quoi le prolétariat remplacera l'État ? H.1.5 - Pourquoi les anarchistes rejettent l'utilisation de l'État ? H.1.6 - Pourquoi les anarchistes essayent-ils de « bâtir le nouveau monde au sein du vieux » ? H.1.7 - Avez-vous lu L'État et la Révolution de Lénine ? H.1.8 - Engels n’a-t-il pas réfuté l’anarchisme dans son essai "sur l’autorité" ? H.1.9 - L’organisation implique-t-elle la fin de la liberté ? H.1.10 - En quoi la comparaison entre l’amour libre et le mariage indiquent-elle la faiblesse de l’argumentation d’Engels ? H.1.11 - Comment les anarchistes proposent-ils de diriger une usine ? H.2 - Quelles parts de l'anarchisme les marxistes représentent sous un mauvais jour ? Cliquer pour développer H.2.1 - Les anarchistes rejettent-ils la défense d'une révolution ? H.2.2 - Les anarchistes rejettent-ils le besoin de lutte collective de la classe ouvrière ? H.2.3 - L'anarchisme cherche-t-il à « revenir à ce qui se faisait avant » ? H.2.4 - Les anarchistes pensent-ils que « l'État est l'ennemi principal » ou bien qu'il n'est qu'un aspect de la société de classe ? H.2.5 - Les anarchistes pensent-ils que le socialisme accompli créera le grand soir ? H.2.6 - Comment les marxistes représentent sous un mauvais jour les idées anarchistes d'entraide ? H.2.7 - Qui les anarchistes considèrent-ils comme leurs "agents de changement social" ? H.2.8 - Quelle est la relation de l'anarchisme avec le syndicalisme ? H.2.9 - Les anarchistes ont-ils des politiques "libérales" ? H.2.10 - Les anarchistes sont-ils opposés aux dirigeants ? H.2.11 - Les anarchistes sont-ils "anti-démocratiques" ? H.2.12 - L'anarchisme ne fait-il que survivre en l'absence d'un fort mouvement ouvrier ? H.2.13 - Les anarchistes rejetent-ils l'action et la lutte "politiques" ? H.2.14 - Les organisations anarchistes sont-elles soit inefficaces, soit élitistes, soit "étrangement bizarre" ? H.2.15 - Les anarchistes rejetent-ils la discipline ? H.2.16 - L'échec de la Révolution espagnole représente-t'il l'échec de l'anarchisme ? H.3 - Quels sontles mythes du socialisme d'État ? Cliquer pour développer H.3.1 - Les anarchistes et les marxistes veulent-ils la même chose ? H.3.2 - Le marxisme est-il le socialisme "venant d'en-bas" ? H.3.3 - Le léninisme est-il "le socialisme venant d'en-bas" ? H.3.4 - Les anarchistes ne citent-ils pas les marxists de façon sélective ? H.3.5 - L'appropriation marxiste des idées anarchistes a-t'elle changé le marxisme ? H.3.6 - Le marxisme est-il la seule théorie révolutionnaire ayant fonctionné ? H.3.7 - Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas avec la théorie marxiste de l'État ? H.3.8 - Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas avec la théorie marxiste-léniniste de l'État ? H.3.9 - L'État n'est-il qu'un simple agent du pouvoir économique ? H.3.10 - Le marxisme a-t'il toujours défendu l'idée de conseils ouvriers ? H.3.11 - Le marxisme cherche-t'il à placer le pouvoir entre les mains d'organisations d'ouvriers ? H.3.12 - Le développement du capitalisme est-il une condition première pour parvenir au socialisme ? H.3.13 - En quoi le socialisme d'État n'est-il que du capitalisme d'État ? H.3.14 - Les marxistes ne croient-ils pas au contrôle ouvrier ? H.3.15 - Des facteurs objectifs peuvent-ils expliquer l'échec de la Révolution russe ? H.3.16 - L'idéologie bolchévik influença-t'elle l'issue désastreuse de la Révolution russe ? H.4 - Engels refuta-t'il l'anarchisme dans son essai De l'Autorité ? Cliquer pour développer H.4.1 - L'organisation implique-t'elle la fin de la liberté ? H.4.2 - Comment l'opposition de l'amour libre au mariage souligne la faiblesse des arguments d'Engels ? H.4.3 - Comment les anarchistes proposent-ils de diriger une usine ? H.4.4 - Comment la lutte des classes refute-t'elle les arguments d'Engels disant que l'industrie nécessite de laisser « toute l'autonomie derrière » ? H.4.5 - Est-ce que la façon dont fonctionne l'industrie est "indépendante de toute organisation sociale" ? H.4.6 - En quoi le livre d'Engels De l'Autorité handicape le marxisme ? H.4.7 - Pourquoi l'argument d'Engels selon lequel la révolution est « la chose la plus autoritaire qui soit » est complètement hors de propos ? H.5 - Qu'est-ce que l'avant-gardisme et pourquoi les anarchistes le rejettent-ils ? Cliquer pour développer H.5.1 - Pourquoi les partis politiques avant-gardistes ne sont-ils pas socialistes ? H.5.2 - Les affirmations avant-gardistes ont-elles été validées ? H.5.3 - En quoi l'avant-gardisme implique-t'il le pouvoir d'un parti ? H.5.4 - Lénine abandonna-t'il l'avant-gardisme ? H.5.5 - Qu'est-ce que le "centralisme démocratique" ? H.5.6 - Pourquoi les anarchistes s'opposent-ils au "centralisme démocratique" ? H.5.7 - La façon dont les révolutionnaires s'organisent est-elle importante ? H.5.8 - Les partis avant-gardistes sont-ils efficaces ? H.5.9 - En quoi les partis avant-gardistes sont-ils efficaces ? H.5.10 - Pourquoi le "centralisme démocratique" produit le "centralisme bureaucratique" ? H.5.11 - Pouvez-vous donner un exemple de la nature néfaste des partis avant-gardistes ?

Sommaire complet et détaillé

Catégorie:Pourquoi les anarchistes s'opposent au socialisme d'État ? Pour les anarchistes, l'idée que le socialisme puisse être atteint de par la propriété d'État est tout simplement ridicule. Pour des raisons qui deviennent très clair, les anarchistes affirment que de tels systémes "socialistes" serait tout simplement une forme de « capitalisme d'État ». Un tel régime ne ferait pas fondamentalement changer la position de la classe ouvrière, dont les membres seraient tout simplement des esclaves salariés à la bureaucratie étatique plutôt qu'à la classe capitaliste.

Toutefois, avant de commencer le débat sur la raison pour laquelle les anarchistes pensent cela, nous avons besoin de clarifier notre terminologie. La raison en est que l'expression "capitalisme d'État" a trois significations distinctes, liés, dans la pensée socialiste (en particulier marxiste). Tout d'abord, le "capitalisme d'État" était / est utilisé pour décrire le système actuel des grandes entreprises soumises à des contrôle de l'Etat (en particulier si, comme dans la guerre, l'Etat capitaliste obtient des pouvoirs étendus sur l'industrie). Deuxièmement, elle a été utilisée par Lénine pour décrire ses objectifs immédiats après la Révolution d'Octobre, à savoir un régime dans lequel les capitalistes resteraient, mais seraient soumis à un système de contrôle de l'Etat hérité par le nouvel état "prolétaire" de l'ancien état capitaliste ( voir l'article 10 de l'annexe sur "Qu'est-il arrivé au cours de la Révolution Russe?" pour plus de détails). La troisième utilisation du terme est de signifier un régime dans lequel l'état remplace totalement la classe capitaliste par la nationalisation des moyens de production. Dans un tel régime, l'État serait propriétaire, gérant et accumulant du capital à la place des capitalistes.

Les anarchistes sont opposés à tous les trois systèmes décrits par le terme de "capitalisme d'État". Ici, nous nous concentrons sur la troisième définition, en faisant valoir que le socialisme d'État serait mieux décrit comme du "capitalisme d'État" comme une propriété d'Etat des moyens d'existence qui ne sont pas au coeur du capitalisme, à savoir le travail salarié. Au contraire, il remplace tout simplement les patrons privés par l'État et change la forme de propriété (de privé à l'État) plutôt que de se débarrasser de celle-ci.

L'idée que le socialisme est simplement égal à la propriété d'Etat (nationalisation) est facile à trouver dans les œuvres du marxisme. Le Manifeste communiste, par exemple, stipule que le "prolétariat utilisera sa suprématie politique pour arracher, par degrés, tous les capitaux de la bourgeoisie, et centraliser tous les instruments de production entre les mains de l'Etat". Cela signifie que la "centralisation du crédit entre les mains de l'Etat, par le biais d'une banque nationale avec le capital d'État et un monopole exclusif", plus la "centralisation des moyens de communication et de transport dans les mains de l'État", l'"extension des usines et des instruments de production appartenant à l'État" et l'"etablissement d'armées industrielles, en particulier dans l'agriculture".

Engels reprend cette formule trente-deux ans plus tard, dans "socialisme: utopique et scientifique" en affirmant que le capitalisme lui-même "force de plus en plus la transformation de vaste moyens de production, déjà socialisés, dans l'État. Le prolétariat s'empare du pouvoir politique et transforme la moyens de production en biens de l'État". Le socialisme n'est pas assimilée à la propriété d'Etat des forces productives par un Etat capitaliste, "mais caché en son sein elles sont les conditions techniques qui forment les éléments de cette solution" au problème social. Il se borne à "montrer lui-meme la voie à l'accomplissement de cette révolution. Le prolétariat s'empare du pouvoir politique et transforme les moyens de production en propriété de l'État". Ainsi, la propriété d'État après que le prolétariat ait pris le pouvoir est la base du socialisme, lorsque par ce "premier acte" de la révolution l'état "se constitue vraiment lui-même comme le représentant de l'ensemble de la société".

Quelle est l'importance de ces programmes sur les premières étapes du socialisme est un complet non-débat de ce qui se passe sur le lieu de production, le non-débat sur les relations sociales sur le lieu de travail. Au contraire, nous sommes soumis à l'examen de "la contradiction entre la production socialisé et l'appropriation capitaliste" et affirme que depuis qu'il y a une "organisation socialisé de la production dans l'usine," cela est devenu "incompatible avec l'anarchie de la production dans la société". La conclusion évidente à tirer est que "le socialisme" héritera, sans changement, le lieu de travail "socialisé" du capitalisme et que le changement fondamental est celui de la propriété : "Le prolétariat se saisit du pouvoir publique, et par le biais de cela transforme les moyens de production socialisé... en biens publics. Par cet acte, le prolétariat libère les moyens de production du caractère de capital qu'ils avaient jusqu'ici la charge".

Que le mouvement marxiste est venu a voir la propriété d'État plutôt que la gestion de la production par les travailleurs comme la question clé n'est guère surprenant. Ainsi, nous trouvons le leader social-démocrate faisant valoir que le socialisme signifie fondamentalement l'État, en vertu du contrôle social-démocrate bien sur, acquérant les moyens de production et les nationalisant. Hilferding présentait ce qui était l'orthodoxie marxiste du moment où il a fait valoir que dans "une société communiste" la production "est consciemment déterminé par l'organe social central", qui déciderait "ce qui doit être produit et combien, où et par qui". Bien que cette information est déterminée par les forces du marché sous le capitalisme, dans le socialisme, il est attribué aux membres de la société socialiste par leurs autorités... Nous devons tirer la progression invariable de l'économie socialiste a partir des lois, des ordonnances et des règlements des autorités socialistes". Alors que nous discutons dans l'annexe sur «Qu'est-il arrivé au cours de la Révolution Russe?", Les bolcheviks ont hérité de ce concept de "socialisme" et ils l'ont implantés.

This vision of society in which the lives of the population are controlled by "authorities" in a "social central organ" which tell the workers what to do, while in line with the Communist Manifesto, seems less that appealing. It also shows why state socialism is not socialism at all. Thus George Barrett:

"If instead of the present capitalist class there were a set of officials appointed by the Government and set in a position to control our factories, it would bring about no revolutionary change. The officials would have to be paid, and we may depend that, in their privileged positions, they would expect good remuneration. The politicians would have to be paid, and we already know their tastes. You would, in fact, have a non-productive class dictating to the producers the conditions upon which they were allowed to use the means of production. As this is exactly what is wrong with the present system of society, we can see that State control would be no remedy, while it would bring with it a host of new troubles . . . under a governmental system of society, whether it is the capitalism of today or a more a perfected Government control of the Socialist State, the essential relationship between the governed and the governing, the worker and the controller, will be the same; and this relationship so long as it lasts can be maintained only by the bloody brutality of the policeman's bludgeon and the soldier's rifle." [The Anarchist Revolution, pp. 8-9] The key to seeing why state socialism is simply state capitalism can be found in the lack of change in the social relationships at the point of production. The workers are still wage slaves, employed by the state and subject to its orders. As Lenin stressed in State and Revolution, under Marxist Socialism "[a]ll citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state . . . All citizens become employees and workers of a single country-wide state 'syndicate' . . . The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labour and pay." [Lenin, Selected Works, vol. 2, p. 312] Given that Engels had argued, against anarchism, that a factory required subordination, authority, lack of freedom and "a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation," Lenin's idea of turning the world into one big factory takes on an extremely frightening nature. [Marx-Engels Reader, p. 731] A reality which one anarchist described in 1923 as being the case in Lenin's Russia:

"The nationalisation of industry, removing the workers from the hands of individual capitalists, delivered them to the yet more rapacious hands of a single, ever-present capitalist boss, the State. The relations between the workers and this new boss are the same as earlier relations between labour and capital, with the sole difference that the Communist boss, the State, not only exploits the workers, but also punishes them himself . . . Wage labour has remained what it was before, except that it has taken on the character of an obligation to the State . . . It is clear that in all this we are dealing with a simple substitution of State capitalism for private capitalism." [Peter Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 71] All of which makes Bakunin's comments seem justified (as well as stunningly accurate):

"Labour financed by the State -- such is the fundamental principle of authoritarian Communism, of State Socialism. The State, having become the sole proprietor . . . will have become sole capitalist, banker, money-lender, organiser, director of all national work, and the distributor of its profits." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 293] Such a system, based on those countries "where modern capitalist development has reached its highest point of development" would see "the gradual or violent expropriation of the present landlords and capitalists, or of the appropriation of all land and capital by the State. In order to be able to carry out its great economic and social mission, this State will have to be very far-reaching, very powerful and highly centralised. It will administer and supervise agriculture by means of its appointed mangers, who will command armies of rural workers organised and disciplined for that purpose. At the same time, it will set up a single bank on the ruins of all existing banks." Such a system, Bakunin correctly predicted, would be "a barracks regime for the proletariat, in which a standardised mass of men and women workers would wake, sleep, work and live by rote; a regime of privilege for the able and the clever." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 258 and p. 259]

Proudhon, likewise was well aware that state ownership did not mean the end of private property, rather it meant a change in who ordered the working class about. "We do not want," he stated, "to see the State confiscate the mines, canals and railways; that would be to add to monarchy, and more wage slavery. We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations" which would be the start of a "vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic social Republic." He contrasted workers' associations run by and for their members to those "subsidised, commanded and directed by the State," which would crush "all liberty and all wealth, precisely as the great limited companies are doing." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 62 and p. 105]

Simply put, if workers did not directly manage their own work then it matters little who formally owns the workplaces in which they toil. As Maurice Brinton argues, libertarian socialists "hold that the 'relations of production' -- the relations which individuals or groups enter into with one another in the process of producing wealth -- are the essential foundations of any society. A certain pattern of relations of production is the common denominator of all class societies. This pattern is one in which the producer does not dominate the means of production but on the contrary both is 'separated from them' and from the products of his [or her] own labour. In all class societies the producer is in a position of subordination to those who manage the productive process. Workers' management of production -- implying as it does the total domination of the producer over the productive process - is not for us a marginal matter. It is the core of our politics. It is the only means whereby authoritarian (order-giving, order-taking) relations in production can be transcended and a free, communist or anarchist, society introduced." He goes on to note that "the means of production may change hands (passing for instance from private hands into those of a bureaucracy, collectively owning them) with out this revolutionising the relations of production. Under such circumstances -- and whatever the formal status of property -- the society is still a class society for production is still managed by an agency other than the producers themselves. Property relations, in other words, do not necessarily reflect the relations of production. They may serve to mask them -- and in fact they often have." [The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, pp. vii-vii]

As such, for anarchists (and libertarian Marxists) the idea that state ownership of the means of life (the land, workplaces, factories, etc.) is the basis of socialism is simply wrong. Therefore, "Anarchism cannot look upon the coming revolution as a mere substitution . . . of the State as the universal capitalist for the present capitalists." [Kropotkin, Evolution and Environment, p. 106] Given that the "State organisation having always been . . . the instrument for establishing monopolies in favour of the ruling minorities, [it] cannot be made to work for the destruction of these monopolies. The anarchists consider, therefore, that to hand over to the State all the main sources of economic life -- the land, the mines, the railways, banking, insurance, and so on -- as also the management of all the main branches of industry . . . would mean to create a new instrument of tyranny. State capitalism would only increase the powers of bureaucracy and capitalism." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 286] Needless to say, a society which was not democratic in the workplace would not remain democratic politically either. Either democracy would become as formal as it is within any capitalist republic or it would be replaced by dictatorship. So, without a firm base in the direct management of production, any "socialist" society would see working class social power ("political power") and liberty wither and die, just like a flower ripped out of the soil.

Unsurprisingly, given all this, we discover throughout history the co-existence of private and state property. Indeed, the nationalisation of key services and industries has been implemented under all kinds of capitalist governments and within all kinds of capitalist states (which proves the non-socialist nature of state ownership). Moreover, anarchists can point to specific events where the capitalist class has used nationalisation to undermine revolutionary gains by the working class. The best example by far is in the Spanish Revolution, when the Catalan government used nationalisation against the wave of spontaneous, anarchist inspired, collectivisation which had placed most of industry into the hand direct hands of the workers (see section I.8). The government, under the guise of legalising the gains of the workers, placed them under state ownership to stop their development, ensure hierarchical control and so class society.

A similar process occurred during the Russian Revolution under the Bolsheviks. Significantly, "many managers, at least those who remained, appear to have preferred nationalisation (state control) to workers' control and co-operated with Bolshevik commissars to introduce it. Their motives are not too difficult to understand . . . The issue of who runs the plants -- who makes decisions -- is, and probably always will be, the crucial question for managers in any industrial relations system." [Jay B. Sorenson, The Life and Death of Soviet Trade Unionism, pp. 67-8] As we discuss in the next section, the managers and capitalists were not the only ones who disliked "workers' control," the Bolsheviks did so as well, who ensured that it was marginalised within a centralised system of state control based on nationalisation.

As such, anarchists think that a utterly false dichotomy has been built up in discussions of socialism, one which has served the interests of both capitalists and state bureaucrats. This dichotomy is simply that the economic choices available to humanity are "private" ownership of productive means (capitalism), or state ownership of productive means (usually defined as "socialism"). In this manner, capitalist nations used the Soviet Union, and continue to use autocracies like North Korea, China, and Cuba as examples of the evils of "public" ownership of productive assets.

Anarchists see little distinction between "private" ownership of the means of life and "state" ownership. This is because the state is a highly centralised structure specifically designed to exclude mass participation and so, therefore, necessarily composed of a ruling administrative body. As such, the "public" cannot actually "own" the property the state claims to hold in its name. The ownership and thus control of the productive means is then in the hands of a ruling elite, the state administration (i.e. bureaucracy). Thus, the means of production and land of a state "socialist" regime are not publicly owned -- rather, they are owned by a bureaucratic elite, in the name of the people, a subtle but important distinction.

In this fashion, decisions about the allocation and use of the productive assets is not made by the people themselves, but by the administration, by economic planners. Similarly, in "private" capitalist economies, economic decisions are made by a coterie of managers. In both cases the managers make decisions which reflect their own interests and the interests of the owners (be it shareholders or the state bureaucracy) and not the workers involved or society as a whole. In both cases, economic decision-making is top-down in nature, made by an elite of administrators -- bureaucrats in the state socialist economy, capitalists or managers in the "private" capitalist economy. The much-lauded distinction of capitalism is that unlike the monolithic, centralised state socialist bureaucracy it has a choice of bosses (and choosing a master is not freedom). And given the similarities in the relations of production between capitalism and state "socialism," the obvious inequalities in wealth in so-called "socialist" states are easily explained. The relations of production and the relations of distribution are inter-linked and so inequality in terms of power in production means inequality in control of the social product, which will be reflected in inequality in terms of wealth.

In other words, private property exists if some individuals (or groups) control/own things which are used by other people. This means, unsurprising, that state ownership is just a form of property rather than the negation of it. If you have a highly centralised structure (as the state is) which plans and decides about all things within production, then this central administrative would be the real owner because it has the exclusive right to decide how things are used, not those using them. The existence of this central administrative strata excludes the abolition of property, replacing socialism or communism with state owned "property," i.e. state capitalism. As such, state ownership does not end wage labour and, therefore, social inequalities in terms of wealth and access to resources. Workers are still order-takers under state ownership (whose bureaucrats control the product of their labour and determine who gets what). The only difference between workers under private property and state property is the person telling them what to do. Simply put, the capitalist or company appointed manager is replaced by a state appointed one.

As anarcho-syndicalist Tom Brown stresses, when "the many control the means whereby they live, they will do so by abolishing private ownership and establishing common ownership of the means of production, with workers' control of industry." However, this is "not to be confused with nationalisation and state control" as "ownership is, in theory, said to be vested in the people" but, in fact "control is in the hands of a small class of bureaucrats." Then "common ownership does not exist, but the labour market and wage labour go on, the worker remaining a wage slave to State capitalism." Simply put, common ownership "demands common control. This is possible only in a condition of industrial democracy by workers' control." [Syndicalism, p. 94] In summary:

"Nationalisation is not Socialisation, but State Capitalism . . . Socialisation . . . is not State ownership, but the common, social ownership of the means of production, and social ownership implies control by the producers, not by new bosses. It implies Workers' Control of Industry -- and that is Syndicalism." [Op. Cit., p. 111] However, many Marxists (in particular Leninists) state they are in favour of both state ownership and "workers' control." As we discuss in more depth in next section, while they mean the same thing as anarchists do by the first term, they have a radically different meaning for the second (it is for this reason modern-day anarchists generally use the term "workers' self-management"). To anarchist ears, the combination of nationalisation (state ownership) and "workers' control" (and even more so, self-management) simply expresses political confusion, a mishmash of contradictory ideas which simply hides the reality that state ownership, by its very nature, precludes workers' control. As such, anarchists reject such contradictory rhetoric in favour of "socialisation" and "workers' self-management of production." History shows that nationalisation will always undermine workers' control at the point of production and such rhetoric always paves the way for state capitalism.

Therefore, anarchists are against both nationalisation and privatisation, recognising both as forms of capitalism, of wage slavery. We believe in genuine public ownership of productive assets, rather than corporate/private or state/bureaucratic control. Only in this manner can the public address their own economic needs. Thus, we see a third way that is distinct from the popular "either/or" options forwarded by capitalists and state socialists, a way that is entirely more democratic. This is workers' self-management of production, based on social ownership of the means of life by federations of self-managed syndicates and communes.

For further discussion, see Kropotkin's discussion of "The collectivist Wages System" in The Conquest of Bread and selections from the British Anarchist Journal Freedom about the wide-scale nationalisation which took place after the end of the Second World War entitled Neither Nationalisation Nor Privatisation: An Anarchist Approach.

Notes et references

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