💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › errico-malatesta-communism-and-individualism.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 09:40:47. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Communism and Individualism Author: Errico Malatesta Date: April 1926 Language: en Topics: anarcho-communism, individualism, communism Source: The Anarchist Revolution: Polemical Articles 1924–1931, edited and introduced by Vernon Richards. Freedom Press London 1995. Notes: This article is a comment on an article by Max Nettlau. Max Nettlau (1865–1944) is an Austrian anarchist historian.
In his recent article Nettlau states that the reason, or at least one of
the reasons why, after so many years of propaganda, struggle and
sacrifices, Anarchism has still not managed to attract the great mass of
the people and inspire them to revolt, lies in the fact that the
anarchists of the two schools of communism and individualism have each
set out their own economic theory as the only solution to the social
problem and have not, as a result, succeeded in persuading people that
their ideas can be realised.
I really believe that the essential reason for our lack of success is
that given the present environment — given, that is, the material and
moral conditions of the mass of the workers and those who, though not
workers producing goods are victims of the same social structure — our
propaganda can only have limited scope, and none whatsoever in some
wretched areas and among those strata of the population that live in the
greatest physical and moral misery. And I believe that only when the
situation changes and becomes more favourable to us (something which
could happen particularly in revolutionary times and through our own
efforts) will our ideas win over an increasing number of people and
increase the possibility of our putting them into practice. The division
between communists and individualists has little to do with it, since
this really only interests those who already are anarchists, and the
small minority of potential anarchists.
But it nevertheless is true that the polemics between individualists and
communists have often absorbed much of our energy. They have prevented,
even when it was possible, the development of a frank and fraternal
collaboration between all anarchists and have held at bay many who, had
we been united, would have been attracted by our passion for liberty.
Nettlau therefore does well to preach harmony and to show that for real
freedom, that is Anarchy, to exist, there has to be the possibility of
choice, and that everyone can arrange their lives to suit themselves,
whether on communist or individualist lines, or some mixture of both.
But Nettlau is mistaken, in my view, to believe that the differences
among anarchists who call themselves communists, and those calling
themselves individualists is really based on the idea that each has of
economic life (production and distribution) in an anarchist society.
After all, these are questions that concern a far distant future; and if
it is true that the ideal, the ultimate goal, is the beacon that guides
or should guide the conduct of men and women, it is even more true that
what, more than anything else, determines agreement and disagreement is
not what we want to do tomorrow, but what we do and want to do today. In
general we get on better and have more interest in getting on with
fellow-travellers who make the same journey as us but with a different
destination in mind, than we do with those who, though they say they
want to go to the same place as us, take an opposite road! Thus it has
happened that anarchists of various tendencies, despite basically
wanting the same thing, find themselves, in their daily lives and in
their propaganda, in fierce opposition to one another.
Given the fundamental principle of anarchism — namely, that no-one
should have the desire or the means to oppress others and force others
to work for them — it is clear that Anarchism involves all and only
those forms of life that respect liberty and recognise that every person
has an equal right to enjoy the good things of nature and the products
of their own activity.
It is uncontested by anarchists that the real, concrete being, the being
who has consciousness and feels, enjoys and suffers, is the individual
and that Society, far from being superior to the individual, is that
individual’s instrument and slave; must be no more than the union of
associated men and women for the greater good of all. And from this
point of view it could be said that we are all individualists.
But to be anarchists it is not enough to want the emancipation of the
individual alone. We must also want the emancipation of all. It is not
enough to rebel against oppression. We must refuse to be oppressors. We
need to understand the bonds of solidarity, natural or desired which
link humanity, to love our fellow beings, suffer from others’
misfortune, not feel happy if one is aware of the unhappiness of others.
And this is not a question of economic assets, but of feelings or, as it
is theoretically called, a question of ethics.
Given such principles and such feelings which, despite differences of
language, are common to all anarchists, it is a questions of finding
those solutions to the practical problems of life that most respect
liberty and best satisfy our feelings of love and solidarity.
Those anarchists who call themselves communists (and I am among them)
are communist not because they want to impose their specific way of
seeing or believe that it is the only means of salvation, but because
they are convinced, and will remain so unless there is evidence to the
contrary, that the more men and women, united in comradeship, and the
closer their cooperation on behalf of all, the greater will be the
well-being and the freedom that everybody will enjoy. They believe that
even where people are freed from human oppression they remain exposed to
the hostile forces of nature, which they cannot overcome on their own,
but that with the cooperation of others, they can control and transform
into the means of their well-being. The individual who wished to supply
his own material needs by working alone would be the slave ofhis
labours. A peasant, for instance, who wanted to cultivate a piece of
ground all alone, would be renouncing all the advantages of cooperation
and condemning himself to a wretched life: no rest, no travel, no study,
no contacts with the outside world ... and he would not always be able
to appease his hunger.
It is grotesque to think that some anarchists, in spite of calling
themselves and being communists, want to live as it were in a convent,
submitting themselves to a common regime of uniform meals, clothes, etc.
But it would be just as absurd to think they sought to do what they
wanted without reference to the needs of others, the rights of all to
equal freedom. Everyone knows, for instance, that Kropotkin, one of the
most passionate and eloquent propagators of the communist view, was at
the same time a great apostle of individual independence, with a
passionate desire for everyone to be able to freely develop and satisfy
their own artistic tastes, devote themselves to scientific research,
find a means of harmoniously uniting manual and intellectual labour so
that human beings could become so in the most elevated sense of the
word.
Moreover, the communists (the anarchist ones) believe that because of
natural differences in fertility, health and location of the soil it
would be impossible to ensure that every individual enjoyed equal
working conditions. But at the same time they are aware of the immense
difficulties involved in putting into practice, without a long period of
free development, the universal, voluntary communism which they believe
to be the supreme ideal of humanity, emancipated and brought together in
comradeship. They have therefore come to a conclusion that could be
summed up with this formula: The greater the possibility of communism,
the greater the possibility of individualism; in other words, the
greatest solidarity to enjoy the greatest liberty.
On the other hand, individualism (the anarchist variety) is a reaction
against authoritarian communism — the first concept in history to have
presented itself to the human mind in the form of a rational and just
society, influencing to a greater or lesser extent all utopias and
attempts at setting them up in practice — a reaction, I repeat, against
authoritarian communism which, in the name of equality, obstructs and
almost destroys the human personality. The individualists give the
greatest importance to an abstract concept of freedom and fail to take
into account, or dwell on the fact that real, concrete freedom is the
outcome of solidarity and voluntary cooperation. It would be unjust to
believe the individualists seek to deprive themselves of the benefits of
cooperation and condemn themselves to an impossible isolation. They
certainly believe that to work in isolation is fruitless and that an
individual, to ensure a living as a human being and to materially and
morally enjoy all the benefits of civilisation, must either exploit —
directly or indirectly — the labour of others and wax fat on the misery
of the workers, or associate with his fellows and share with them the
pains and the joys of life. And since, being anarchists, they cannot
allow the exploitation of one by another, they must necessarily agree
that to be free and live as human beings they have to accept some degree
and form of voluntary communism.
In the economic field, therefore, which is where the split between
communists and individualists apparently lies, conciliation should
rapidly be brought about by common struggle for the conditions of true
liberty and then by leaving it to experience to resolve the practical
problems of life. Discussions, studies, theories, even conflicts between
different tendencies, would then all be grist to the mill as we prepare
ourselves for our future tasks.
But why then, if on the economic question the differences are more
apparent than real, and in any case are easily overcome, is there this
eternal dissension, this hostility which sometimes becomes outright
enmity between those who, as Nettlau says, are so close to one another,
motivated by the same passions and ideals?
As I mentioned earlier, differences as to the plans and theories
regarding the future economic organisation of society are not the real
reason for this persistent division, which is, rather, created and
maintained by more important, and above all, more topical dissent on
moral and political issues.
I do not speak of those who describe themselves as anarchist
individualists only to show their ferociously bourgeois instincts when
they proclaim their contempt for humanity, their insensibility to the
sufferings of others and their longing for dominion. Nor do I speak of
those who call themselves communist anarchist, but are basically
authoritarian, and believe they are in possession of the absolute truth
and award themselves the right to impose it on the rest of us.
Communists and individualists have often made the mistake of welcoming
and recognising as comrades those who share with them only some common
vocabulary or external appearance.
I mean to speak of those I consider the real anarchists. These are
divided on many points of genuine and topical importance and can be
classed as communists or individualists, generally out of habit, without
the issues that really divide them having anything to do with questions
concerning the future society.
Among the anarchists there are the revolutionaries, who believe that the
violence that upholds the present order must be defeated by violence in
order to create an environment which allows the free development of
individuals and collectivities; and there are the educationalists, who
believe that social change can only come about by first changing
individuals through education and propaganda. There are the partisans of
non-resistance or passive resistance, who shrink from violence even
where it serves to repel violence, and there are those who admit to the
necessity for violence but who are in turn divided as to the nature,
scope and boundaries of legitimate violence. There are disagreements
over the attitude of anarchists to the unions; disagreements on the
autonomous organisation or non-organisation of anarchists; permanent or
occasional disagreements on the relations between the anarchists and
other subversive groupings.
It is on these and similar problems we need to come to some
understanding; or if, as it appears, agreement is not possible, then we
need to know how to tolerate one another. Work together when there is
consensus and when there is not, allow each other to act as they think
best, without interfering.
After all, when one thinks about it, no-one can be sure of being right,
and no-one is always right.