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Title: Towards a Libertarian Communism Author: Daniel Guérin Date: Autumn 1988 Language: en Topics: libertarian communism, libertarian socialism, autobiographical, anti-Bolshevism Source: https://libcom.org/library/towards-libertarian-communism-daniel-guerin
Of all the reading which I did, in 1930, on the boat which took me to
Indochina and back, of books which ranged from Marx to Proudhon, to
Georges Sorel, to Hubert Lagardelle, to Fernand Pelloutier, to Lenin and
Trotsky, those of Marx had without any doubt the greatest impact. These
(books) opened my eyes, uncovered the mysteries of capitalist
surplus-value, taught me about historical materialism and the dialectic.
Entering, from then on, into the revolutionary movement, throwing
overboard my bourgeois gown, I was initially, instinctually
anti-Stalinist; at that time I was a left socialist around Marceau
Pivert and a revolutionary syndicalist under the influence of Pierre
Monatte. Later, the writings of Bakunin, in the six-volume edition of
Max Nettlau/James Guillaume, were like a second operation for cataract.
They left me for ever allergic to any version of authoritarian socialism
whether it calls itself Jacobin, Marxist or Trotskyist.
It was under the commotion provoked in me by these writings (of Bakunin)
that I was led to fundamentally revise the admiration I had held for the
revolutionary strategy of Lenin, to re-work (my view) of this idol and
proceed to an in-depth critique of certain authoritarian conceptions of
the Bolshevik leader. I concluded, from this internal debate, that
socialism would have to rid itself of the worn-out notion of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, in order to recover its authentic
libertarianism.
This was what led me, in my historical work on the French Revolution, to
substitute everywhere for the words dictatorship of the proletariat
those of revolutionary constraint. Following this, I paid more attention
to that lightning-quick process which Rosa Luxembourg had counterpoised
to the ultra-centralism of Lenin and the sterile character of his
bureaucratic substitutionism. Much later, in 1971, I deepened my
analysis of Luxembourgism and attempted to emphasise her relative
kinship with libertarian spontaneity.
The epoch when I was discovering Bakunin and re-reading Rosa was, in
terms of the class struggle, the time of the Hungarian revolution and
its savage suppression by Russian tanks. I felt, for my part, less
interested in the political about-turns of that attempt at liberation
from the yoke of Moscow, because it was charged through with disquieting
ambiguities, than by the ephemeral flourishing of the Hungarian workers’
councils.
My libertarianism passed through successive phases: in the beginning
what I would call a classical anarchism, which found expression in Youth
of Libertarian Socialism (1959), then Anarchism, from Theory to Practice
(1965) and, simultaneously, Neither God nor Master: Anthology of
Anarchism, where besides Bakunin, there was space for Stirner, Proudhon,
Kropotkin, Malatesta and many others.
Then moving on a good bit from classical anarchism, and not turning my
back for an instant on my marxian studies, I published For a Libertarian
Marxism (1969), which title, I’m sure, confused and shocked some of my
new libertarian friends. Then, just before the revolutionary tumult of
May ’68, into which I plunged up to the neck, I rejoined the Libertarian
Communist Movement (MCL around Georges Fontenis (returned from his
authoritarian gaps!). Later I was with the Libertarian Communist
Organisation (OCL), in its first and second forms, and then, right up
until today, the Union of Libertarian Communist Workers (UTCL).
During a quarter century, therefore I aligned myself, and still do, with
libertarian socialism or communism (the word anarchist seems to me too
restrictive and I don’t use it unless it is joined by the word
communist). This libertarian communism is different, though it can be
combined with, the utopia propagated by the school of Kropotkin,
anticipating the era of abundance. Specifically, Libertarian Communism,
as I understand it, is a combination of the best of both anarchism and
the thought of Marx. I tried to disentangle these disparate elements in
a pamphlet called Anarchism and Marxism which was added on to the second
edition of my little book Anarchism (1981).
In the evening of my life, I certainly do not claim to have foreseen,
except in very broad outlines, the definitive crystallisation of an
uneasy and informal synthesis. H.E., Kaminski, in his biography of
Bakunin, thought it was necessary and inevitable, but that it was more
for the future than for the present to formulate. It must come from the
new social storms which will emerge,and which no-one today can pride
themselves on bringing about.
I hope I have been, throughout my militant engagement, a historian and
theoretician to advantage. It seems to me highly presumptuous to
announce, among other things, what aspects of anarchism and the floating
thoughts of Marx are, or are not reconcilable. Libertarian Communism is
as yet only an approximation, and not a dogma of absolute truth.
It cannot, it seems to me, define itself on paper absolutely. It will
not be a rationalisation of the past, but a rallying point for the
future. The main conviction which animates me is that the future social
revolution will not be Muscovite despotism nor anaemic social-democracy,
that it will not be authoritarian but libertarian and self-managing, or,
if you like, councillist.