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Title: Anarchism and Democracy
Author: Zoe Baker
Date: 18 April 2022
Language: en
Topics: anarchy, democracy, Direct Democracy
Source: Retrieved on 2022-04-16 from https://anarchopac.com/2022/04/15/anarchism-and-democracy/

Zoe Baker

Anarchism and Democracy

Anarchism is a social movement which advocates the abolition of all

forms of domination and exploitation in favour of a society based on

freedom, equality and co-operation. It holds that this goal can only be

achieved if the hierarchical social structures of capitalism and the

state are abolished and replaced by a socialist society organised via

horizontal free association. Doing so requires a fundamental

transformation in how organisations are structured and decisions are

made. Capitalism and the state are hierarchical pyramids in which

decision-making flows from the top to the bottom. They are based on a

division between a minority who monopolise decision-making power and

issue commands, and a majority who lack real decision-making power and

must ultimately obey the orders of their superiors. A horizontal social

structure, in comparison, is one where people collectively self-manage

and co-determine the organisation as equals. In an anarchist society

there would be no masters or subjects.

Modern anarchists often describe anarchism as democracy without the

state. Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin argued in 1993 that “there is no democracy

or freedom under government — whether in the United States, China or

Russia. Anarchists believe in direct democracy by the people as the only

kind of freedom and self-rule” (Ervin 1993. Also see Milstein 2010,

97–107). Perhaps the most famous advocate of this position was David

Graeber. In 2013 Graeber argued that “Anarchism does not mean the

negation of democracy”. It instead takes “core democratic principles to

their logical conclusion” by proposing that collective decisions should

be made via “nonhierarchical forms of direct democracy”. By “democracy”

Graeber meant any system of “collective deliberation” based on “full and

equal participation” (Graeber 2013, 154, 27, 186).

This endorsement of direct democracy is not a universal position among

modern anarchists. A significant number of anarchists have argued that

anarchism is fundamentally incompatible with, or at least distinct from,

democracy. Their basic argument is that democracy means rule by the

people or the majority, whilst anarchism advocates the abolition of all

systems of rulership. The word anarchism itself derives from the ancient

Greek work anarchos, which means without rulers. Within a democracy

decisions are enforced on everyone within a given territory via

institutionalised mechanisms of coercion, such as the law, army, police

and prisons. Defenders of democracy take this coercive enforcement to be

legitimate because the decisions were made democratically, such as every

citizen having the right to participate in the decision-making process.

Since such coercive enforcement is taken to be incompatible with

anarchism’s commitment to free association, it follows that anarchism

does not advocate democracy (Gordon 2008, 67–70; Crimethinc 2016).

Anarchists who advocate democracy without the state are themselves in

favour of free association. Graeber, for example, advocates a society

“where humans only enter those kinds of relations with one another that

would not have to be enforced by the constant threat of violence”. As a

result, he opposed any system of decision-making in which someone has

“the ability … to call on armed men to show up and say ‘I don’t care

what you have to say about this; shut up and do what you’re told’”

(Graeber 2013, 187–8. Also see Milstein 2010, 60–2). Given this, the

pro-democracy and anti-democracy anarchists I have examined are

advocating the same position in different language. Both advocate

collective methods of decision-making in which everyone involved has an

equal say. Both argue that this should be achieved via voluntary

association and reject the idea that decisions should be imposed on

those who reject them via mechanisms of institutionalised coercion, such

as the law or police. They just disagree about whether these systems

should be called democracy because they use different definitions of

that word.

During these debates it is common for anarchists to appeal to the fact

that historical anarchists were against what they called democracy.

Unfortunately these appeals to anarchist history are often a bit muddled

due to people focusing on the words historical anarchists used, rather

than their ideas. In this essay I shall explain not only what historical

anarchists wrote about democracy but also how they made decisions. I do

not think that the history of anarchism can be straight forwardly used

to settle the debate on anarchism and democracy. My hope is only that an

in-depth knowledge of anarchist history will help modern anarchists

think about the topic in more fruitful ways.

The Historical Anarchist Critique of Democracy

The majority of historical anarchists only used the term ‘democracy’ to

refer to a system of government which was, at least on paper, based on

the rule of the people or the majority. Errico Malatesta wrote that,

“anarchists do not accept majority government (democracy), any more than

they accept government by the few (aristocracy, oligarchy, or

dictatorship by one class or party) nor that of one individual

(autocracy, monarchy or personal dictatorship)” (Malatesta 2014, 488).

Malatesta did not invent these definitions. He is merely repeating the

standard definitions of different forms of government in so called

‘western’ political theory. The same distinction between the government

of the many, of the few, and of one individual can be found in earlier

theorists such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau (Hobbes 1998, 123; Locke

2016, 65–6; Rousseau 1999, 99–100). These standard definitions of

different forms of government derived from ancient Greek sources,

including Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle (Hansen 1991, 65–9).

The most famous example of a democracy in ancient Greece is Athens

during the 5^(th) century BC. In democratic Athens all major decisions

were made by majority vote in an assembly attended by adult male

citizens. Key government officials were selected at random by lot. The

majority of the population – women, slaves, children and foreigners –

were excluded and lacked decision-making power in the assembly (Hansen

1991, 304–20). There is a tendency for modern radicals to argue that the

example of 5^(th) century Athens demonstrates that from a historical

point of view true democracy is direct democracy. Doing so would be a

mistake. As Raekstad has argued, in ancient Greece the word ‘democracy’

did not refer to a specific decision-making system. Ancient Greeks did

not have our modern distinction between direct democracy and

representative democracy. They instead viewed a city as a democracy if

and only if it was ruled by its citizens or at least the majority of its

citizens. As a result, cities with fundamentally different systems of

decision-making could all be regarded as democracies providing that they

were cities based on the collective self-rule of the citizenry (Raekstad

2020).

Aristotle, to give one example, does not only refer to cities where

citizens debate and directly vote on decisions in an assembly as a

‘democracy’. He also used the term ‘democracy’ to refer to cities where

citizens merely elected government officials who wielded decision-making

power, and then held these government officials to account (Hansen 1991,

3; Aristotle 1998, 235–6). Aristotle did so even though he regarded

selecting officials via lot as a democratic method and selecting

officials via voting as an aristocratic or oligarchical method (ibid,

80–1, 153–5). The reason why is that for Aristotle the key question when

determining what to label a city’s constitution is which group of people

rule. If a city is ruled by the majority of its citizens, and these

citizens are poor in the sense that they do not own a lot of property,

then for Aristotle, it is a democracy independently of the

decision-making mechanisms through which this rule is achieved (ibid,

100–2, 139–41). A modern person could of course disagree with Aristotle

about whether or not citizens who elect representatives truly rule their

city. Such a disagreement does not change the fact that in ancient

Greece the word ‘democracy’ did not just mean what we call direct

democracy.

Between the late 18^(th) and mid 19^(th) centuries the term ‘democracy’

gradually came to refer to governments ruled by parliaments composed of

elected representatives who belonged to political parties. These

governments claimed to be expressions of the will of the people. It

should be kept in mind that these democratic governments were not

initially based on universal suffrage. Representatives were at first

elected by adult male property owners, who were a minority of the

population. Over several decades of struggle from below suffrage was

gradually expanded to include most or all adult men and then, largely

after WW1, all adult men and women. The gradual expansion of suffrage

went alongside various attempts by rulers to prevent genuine universal

suffrage, such as wealthy property owners having multiple votes rather

than only one, or black people being prevented from registering to vote

in the United States (Markoff 2015, 41–76, 83–5, 136–40). This

historical context is why when anarchists in the late 19^(th) and early

20^(th) centuries wrote critiques of ‘democracy’ they focused on the

representative democracy of bourgeois parliaments, rather than the

direct democracy of ancient Athens.

The historical anarchist critique of democracy so understood is as

follows. Anarchists began by arguing that the government of the people

was impossible. What defenders of democracy referred to as ‘the people’

was an abstraction which did not really exist. The actual population of

a country is constituted by distinct individuals with different and

contradictory ideas, needs and aspirations. If people will never agree

on everything, then there will never be a unanimous ‘will of the

people’. There will only ever be multiple and incompatible wills of

different segments of the people. The decisions of governments are

imposed on everyone within a country via the law and the violent

enforcers of the law, such as the police or judges. A democracy is

therefore at best a system of government in which the will of the

majority is violently imposed on the minority in the name of an

abstraction called ‘the people’ (Malatesta 1995, 77–8).

Such a system of government was rejected by anarchists on the grounds

that it is incompatible with freedom. Anarchists were committed to the

view that everyone should be free and that, as a result, no one should

be dominated. As Alexander Berkman wrote, in an anarchist society,

“[y]ou are to be entirely free, and everybody else is to enjoy equal

liberty, which means that no one has a right to compel or force another,

for coercion of any kind is interference with your liberty” (Berkman

2003, 156). In advocating this position anarchists were not arguing that

violence is always wrong. They viewed violence as legitimate when it was

necessary to establish or protect the equal freedom of all, such as in

self-defence or to overthrow the ruling classes. (Malatesta 2014,

187–91) The violence of government, however, goes far beyond this since

they are institutions which have the power, and claim the exclusive

right to, impose their will on everyone within a given territory via

force (ibid, 113, 136).

This was a form of domination which anarchists opposed irrespective of

whether or not the government was ruled by a minority or a majority. In

Luigi Galleani’s words, even if “the rule of the majority over the

minority” were “a mitigated form of tyranny, it would still represent a

denial of freedom” (Galleani 2012, 42). Anarchists reject “the

domination of a majority over the minority, we aspire to realise the

autonomy of the individual within the freedom of association, the

independence of his thought, of his life, of his development, of his

destiny, freedom from violence, from caprice and from the domination of

the majority, as well as of various minorities” (ibid 61. Also see ibid,

50). This opposition to the domination of the majority went alongside

the awareness that majorities are often wrong and can have harmful views

(Malatesta 2015, 63–4). In a homophobic and transphobic society, for

example, the government of the majority would result in laws oppressing

queer people.

Anarchists did not, however, think that modern states have ever been

based on majority rule. They consistently described them as institutions

based on minority rule by a political ruling class in their interests

and the interests of the economic ruling class. This included

self-described democratic governments. In 1873 Michael Bakunin wrote

that,

modern capitalist production and bank speculation … get along very

nicely, though, with so-called representative democracy. This latest

form of the state, based on the pseudo-sovereignty of a sham popular

will, supposedly expressed by pseudo-representatives of the people in

sham popular assemblies, combines the two main conditions necessary for

their success: state centralization, and the actual subordination of the

sovereign people to the intellectual minority that governs them,

supposedly representing them but invariably exploiting them (Bakunin

1990, 13).

Given this Bakunin thought that,

Between a monarchy and the most democratic republic there is only one

essential difference: in the former, the world of officialdom oppresses

and robs the people for the greater profit of the privileged and

propertied classes, as well as to line its own pockets, in the name of

the monarch; in the latter, it oppresses and robs the people in exactly

the same way, for the benefit of the same classes and the same pockets,

but in the name of the people’s will. In a republic a fictitious people,

the ‘legal nation’ supposedly represented by the state, smothers the

real, live people. But it will scarcely be any easier on the people if

the cudgel with which they are beaten is called the people’s cudgel

(Bakunin 1990, 23).

The same position was advocated by Malatesta. He wrote in 1924 that,

“even in the most democratic of democracies it is always a small

minority that rules and imposes its will and interests by force”. As a

result “Democracy is a lie, it is oppression and is in reality,

oligarchy; that is, government by the few to the advantage of a

privileged class” (Malatesta 1995, 78, 77. Also see Berkman 2003, 71–3).

The anarchist critique of democratic governments should not be

interpreted as the claim that all forms of government are equally bad.

Both Bakunin and Malatesta also claimed that the worst democracy was

preferable to the best monarchy or dictatorship (Bakunin 1980, 144;

Malatesta 1995, 77).

Given their analysis of the state as an institution which serves the

interests of the capitalist class, anarchists concluded that a truly

democratic government, where the majority rule, could only possibly be

established in a socialist society based on the common ownership of the

means of production (Malatesta 1995, 73). They did not, however, think

that this could actually happen. Since the modern state is a centralised

and hierarchical institution which rules over an extended area of

territory, it follows that state power can only in practice be wielded

by a minority of elected representatives. These representatives would

not be mere delegates mandated to complete a specific tasks. They would

be governors who had the power to issue commands and impose their will

on others via force or the threat of it. As a result they would

constitute a distinct political ruling class. Over time these

representatives would be transformed by the activity of exercising state

power and become primarily concerned with reproducing and expanding

their power over the working classes (Baker 2019).

In rejecting what they called democracy, historical anarchists were not

rejecting the idea that collective decisions should be made in general

assemblies. Historical anarchists consistently argued that in an

anarchist society collective decisions would be made in workplace and

community assemblies. Anarchists referred to these assemblies using

various terms, such as labour councils, communes, and associations of

production and consumption (Rocker 2004, 47–8; Malatesta 2014, 60;

Goldman 1996, 68). The National Confederation of Labour (CNT), which was

a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union, proposed in its 1936 Zaragoza

congress resolutions that decisions in a libertarian communist society

would be made in “general assemblies”, “communal assemblies” and

“popular assemblies” (Peirats 2011, 103, 105, 107).

A few historical anarchists did refer to anarchism as democracy without

the state but they were in the minority. During the 1930s the Russian

anarcho-syndicalist Gregori Maximoff rejected both “Bourgeois democracy”

and the “democracy” of “the Soviet republic” on the grounds that,

contrary to what they claimed, they were not based on the genuine rule

of the people. They were instead states in which a minority ruling class

exercised power in order to reproduce the domination and exploitation of

the working class. Given this, Maximoff advocated the abolition of the

state in favour of the self-management of society via federations of

workplace and community councils. He regarded such a system of

self-management as genuine democracy. He wrote, “true democracy,

developed to its logical extreme, can become a reality only under the

conditions of a communal confederation. This democracy is Anarchy”

(Maximoff 2015, 37–8). On another occasion Maximoff declared that

“Anarchism is, in the final analysis, nothing but democracy in its

purest and most extreme form” (Maximoff n.d., 19). In arguing that

anarchism was “true democracy” Maximoff was not advocating different

forms of association or decision-making to other anarchists. He was only

using different language to describe the same anarchist ideas.

The majority of anarchists did not refer to an anarchist society as

‘true democracy’ because for them ‘democracy’ necessarily referred to a

system of government. A key reason why historical anarchists associated

‘democracy’ with government was that anarchism as a social movement

emerged in parallel with, and in opposition to, another social movement

called Social Democracy. Although the term ‘social democracy’ has come

to mean any advocate of a capitalist welfare state, it originally

referred to a kind of revolutionary socialist who aimed at the abolition

of all forms of class rule. In order to achieve this goal Social

Democrats argued that the working class should organise into trade

unions and form socialist political parties which engaged in electoral

politics. This was viewed as the means through which the working class

would both win immediate improvements, such as the eight hour day or

legislation against child labour, and overthrow class society through

the conquest of state power and the establishment of a workers’ state.

Social Democrats argued that in so doing socialist political parties

would overthrow bourgeois democracy and establish social or proletarian

democracy (Taber 2021). Anarchists responded by making various arguments

against Social Democracy, such as critiques of trying to achieve

socialism via the conquest of state power. The consequence of this is

that one of the main occasions when historical anarchists used the words

‘democracy’ and ‘democrat’ was when they were referring to Social

Democracy (Kropotkin 2014, 371–82; Berkman 2003, 89–102).

One of the great ironies of history is that the Russian anarchist

Michael Bakunin initially used the language of ‘democracy’. In 1868 he

co-founded an organisation called The Alliance of Socialist Democracy

and wrote a programme for it which committed the group to the goal of

abolishing capitalism and the state (Eckhart 2016, 3; Bakunin 1973,

173–5). The language of ‘democracy’ was echoed by the anarchist led

Spanish section of the 1^(st) International even though it was formally

opposed to the strategy of electoral politics. The September 1871

resolutions of the Valencia Conference declared that “the real Federal

Democratic Republic is common property, anarchy and economic federation,

or in other words the free worldwide federation of free agricultural and

industrial worker’s associations” (Eckhart 2016, 166. For resolutions

against electoral politics see ibid, 160). This language did not catch

on among anarchists and by 1872 Bakunin had definitely abandoned it.

This can be seen in the fact that when he founded a new organisation,

which he viewed as the successor to the original Alliance, he decided to

name it the Alliance of Social Revolutionaries (Bakunin 1990, 235–6,

note 134; Eckhart 2016, 355).

Historical Anarchist Methods of Decision-Making

Having established what historical anarchists thought about democracy, I

shall now turn to their views on collective systems of decision-making.

Historical anarchists proposed a variety of different mechanisms through

which decisions in general assemblies could be made. It can be difficult

to establish how exactly historical anarchists made decisions because it

is a topic which does not appear frequently in surviving articles,

pamphlets or books. Those sources which are available do nonetheless

establish a number of clear positions. Some anarchists advocated

majority vote, whilst other anarchists advocated unanimous decisions in

which everyone involved had to agree on a proposal. Other anarchists

advocated both depending upon the context, such as the size of an

organisation or the kind of decision being made. It should be kept in

mind that what historical anarchists referred to as systems of

‘unanimous agreement’ was not modern consensus decision-making in

different language. I have found no evidence of historical anarchists

using the key features of consensus as a process, such as the specific

steps a facilitator moves the meeting through or the distinction between

standing aside and blocking a proposal.

Malatesta advocated a combination of unanimous agreement and majority

voting. He wrote that in an anarchist society “everything is done to

reach unanimity, and when this is impossible, one would vote and do what

the majority wanted, or else put the decision in the hands of a third

party who would act as arbitrator” (Malatesta n.d., 30). This position

was articulated in response to other anarchists who thought that all

decisions should be made exclusively by unanimous agreement and rejected

the use of voting. He recalled that,

in 1893 … there were many Anarchists, and even at present there are a

few, who, mistaking the form for the essence, and laying more stress on

words than on things, made for themselves a sort of ritual of ‘true’

anarchism, which held them in bondage, which paralyzed their power of

action, and even led them to make absurd and grotesque assertions. Thus

going from the principle: The Majority has no right to impose its will

on the minority; they came to the conclusion that nothing should ever be

done without the unanimous consent of all concerned. But as they had

condemned political elections, which serve only to choose a master, they

could not use the ballot as a mere expression of opinion, and considered

every form of voting as anti-anarchistic (Malatesta 2016, 17. Also see

Turcato 2012, 141).

This opposition to all forms of voting allegedly led to farcical

situations. This included endless meetings where nothing was agreed and

groups forming to publish a paper and then dissolving without having

published anything due to minor disagreements (Malatesta 2016, 17–8).

From these experiences Malatesta concluded that “social life” would be

impossible if “united action” was only allowed to occur when there was

“unanimous agreement”. In situations where it was not possible to

implement multiple solutions simultaneously or effective solidarity

required a uniform action, “it is reasonable, fair and necessary for the

minority to defer to the majority” (Malatesta 2016, 19). To illustrate

this point Malatesta gave the example of constructing a railway. He

wrote,

If a railroad, for instance, were under consideration, there would be a

thousand questions as to the line of the road, the grade, the material,

the type of the engines, the location of the stations, etc., etc., and

opinions on all these subjects would change from day to day, but if we

wish to finish the railroad we certainly cannot go on changing

everything from day to day, and if it is impossible to exactly suit

everybody, it is certainly better to suit the greatest possible number;

always, of course, with the understanding that the minority has all

possible opportunity to advocate its ideas, to afford them all possible

facilities and materials to experiment, to demonstrate, and to try to

become a majority (Malatesta 2016, 18–9).

This is not to say that Malatesta viewed an anarchist society as one

where people voted on every decision. He thought that farmers, for

example, would not need to vote on what season to plant crops since this

is something they already know the answer to. Given this, Malatesta

predicted that over time people would need to vote on fewer decisions

due to them learning the best solution to various problems from

experience (Malatesta n.d., 30).

Malatesta was not alone in disagreeing with anarchists who opposed all

systems of voting. During the 1907 International Anarchist Congress in

Amsterdam, the Belgian anarchist Georges Thonar argued that the

participants should not engage in voting and declared himself “opposed

to any vote”. The minutes of the congress claim that this caused “a

minor incident. Some participants applaud noisily, while lively protest

is also to be heard” (Antonioli 2009, 90). The French anarchist and

revolutionary syndicalist Pierre Monatte then gave the following speech,

I cannot understand how yesterday’s vote can be considered

anti-anarchist, in other words authoritarian. It is absolutely

impossible to compare the vote with which an assembly decides a

procedural question to universal suffrage or to parliamentary polls. We

use votes at all times in our trade unions and, I repeat, I do not see

anything that goes against our anarchist principles.

There are comrades who feel the need to raise questions of principle on

everything, even the smallest things. Unable as they are to understand

the spirit of our anti-parliamentarianism, they place importance on the

mere act of placing a slip of paper in an urn or raising one’s hand to

show one’s opinion (Antonioli 2009, 90–1).

Malatesta’s advocacy of majority voting was also shared by other

anarchists. The Ukrainian anarchist Peter Arshinov wrote in 1928 that

“[a]lways and everywhere, practical problems among us have been resolved

by majority vote. Which is perfectly understandable, for there is no

other way of resolving these things in an organization that is

determined to act” (Arshinov 1928, 241).

The same commitment to majority voting was implemented in the CNT, which

had a membership of 850,000 by February 1936. (Ackelsberg 2005, 62) The

anarchist José Peirats explained the CNT’s system of decision-making as

follows. The CNT was a confederation of trade unions which were

“autonomous units” linked together “only by the accords of a general

nature adopted at national congresses, whether regular or

extraordinary”. As a result of this, individual unions were “free to

reach any decision which is not detrimental to the organisation as a

whole”. The “guidelines of the Confederation” were decided and directly

regulated by the autonomous trade unions themselves. This was achieved

through a system in which “the basis for any local, regional, or

national decision” was “the general assembly of the union, where every

member has the right to attend, raise and discuss issues, and vote on

proposals”. The “resolutions” of these assemblies were “adopted by

majority vote attenuated by proportional representation”. The agenda of

regional or national congresses were “devised by the assemblies”

themselves. These general assemblies in turn “debated” each topic on the

agenda and after reaching an agreement amongst themselves elected

mandated delegates to attend the congress as “the executors of their

collective will” (Peirats 2011, 5).

Anarchists who advocated majority voting disagreed about whether or not

decisions passed by majority vote should be binding on everyone involved

in the decision-making process, or only those who had voted in favour of

them. Malatesta argued that the congress resolutions of a federation

should only be binding on the sections who had voted for them. He wrote

in 1900 that since a federation is a free association which does not

have the right “to impose upon the individual federated members” it

followed that “any group just like any individual must not accept any

collective resolution unless it is worthwhile and agreeable to them”. As

a result, decisions made at the federation’s congresses, which were

attended by mandated delegates representing each group that composed the

federation, were “binding only to those who accept them, and only for as

long as they accept them” (Malatesta 2019, 210, 206).

Malatesta repeated this view in 1927. He claimed that congresses of

specific anarchist organisations, which are organisations composed

exclusively of anarchist militants, “do not lay down the law” or “impose

their own resolutions on others”. Their resolutions are only

“suggestions, recommendations, proposals to be submitted to all

involved, and do not become binding and enforceable except on those who

accept them, and for as long as they accept them”. (Malatesta 2014,

489–90) The function of congresses was to,

maintain and increase personal relationships among the most active

comrades, to coordinate and encourage programmatic studies on the ways

and means of taking action, to acquaint all on the situation in the

various regions and the action most urgently needed in each; to

formulate the various opinions current among the anarchists and draw up

some kind of statistics from them. (ibid, 489. See also ibid, 439–40)

Malatesta’s position on congress resolutions should not be interpreted

as the claim that a person could do whatever they wanted within an

organisation without consideration for the organisation’s common

programme or how their actions effected others. In 1929 he clarified

that within an organisation each member should “feel the need to

coordinate his actions with those of his fellow members”, “do nothing

that harms the work of others and, thus, the common cause” and “respect

the agreements that have been made – except when wishing sincerely to

leave the association”. He thought that people “who do not feel and do

not practice that duty should be thrown out of the association”

(Malatesta 1995, 107–8).

A more concrete understanding of what this position on congress

resolutions looked like can be established by examining actual anarchist

congresses. In 1907 anarchist delegates representing groups in Europe,

the United States and Argentina attended the previously mentioned

International Anarchist Congress in Amsterdam. Proposals or resolutions

at the congress were adopted by majority vote and each delegate had a

single vote. How this was implemented varied depending upon the kind of

decision being made. On the first day of the congress there was a

disagreement about the agenda. One faction proposed that the topic of

anti-militarism should be removed from the agenda and that this topic

should instead be discussed at the separate congress of the

International Antimilitarist Association. The other faction argued that

the anarchists would have to formulate a position on anti-militarism at

their anarchist congress before they attended a distinct congress

attended by people who were not anarchists. The first proposal won 33

votes and the second 38 votes. Since only one proposal could be

implemented the majority position won and the congress included

anti-militarism on its agenda (Antonioli 2009, 36–7. For the later

discussion on anti-militarism see ibid, 137–8).

Over several days the congress passed a variety of resolutions via

majority vote. These resolutions were not binding on the minority. As

the Dutch delegate Christiaan Cornelissen explained, “[v]oting is to be

condemned only if it binds the minority. This is not the case here, and

we are using the vote as an easy means of determining the size of the

various opinions that are being confronted” (ibid, 91). The proposed

resolution against alcohol consumption was not even put to a formal vote

due to almost every delegate being opposed to it (ibid, 150–52). In

situations where there was no need to have a single resolution, multiple

resolutions were passed providing that each received a majority vote.

This occurred when four slightly different resolutions on syndicalism

and the general strike were adopted (ibid, 132–5). The congress minutes

respond to this situation by claiming,

The reader may be rather surprised that these four motions could have

all been passed, given the evident contradictions between them. It

defies the parliamentary norm, but it is a conscious transgression. In

order that the opinion of the majority not suffocate, or seem to

suffocate, that of the minority, the majority presented the single

motions one by one for vote. All four had a majority of votes for. In

consequence, all four were approved (ibid, 135).

Other anarchists argued that decisions passed by majority vote should be

binding on every member of the organisation. In June 1926 a group of

anarchists, who had participated in the Russian revolution and been

forced to flee to Paris to escape Bolshevik repression, issued the

Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft). The

text made a series of proposals about how specific anarchist

organisations should be structured. This included the position that the

collectively made decisions of congresses should be binding on every

section and member of a specific anarchist organisation such that

everyone involved is expected to carry out the majority decision. The

platform states that,

such an agreement and the federal union based on it, will only become

reality, rather than fiction or illusion, on the conditions sine qua non

that all the participants in the agreement and the Union fulfil most

completely the duties undertaken, and conform to communal decisions. In

a social project, however vast the federalist basis on which it is

built, there can be no decisions without their execution. It is even

less admissible in an anarchist organisation, which exclusively takes on

obligations with regard to the workers and their social revolution.

Consequently, the federalist type of anarchist organisation, while

recognising each member’s rights to independence, free opinion,

individual liberty and initiative, requires each member to undertake

fixed organisation duties, and demands execution of communal decisions

(The Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad 1926a. Also see Arshinov 1928,

240–1).

Within a specific anarchist organisation differences of opinion about

its programme, tactics and strategy would of course emerge. In such

situations the authors of The Platform later clarified that there were

three main potential outcomes. In the case of “insignificant

differences” the minority would defer to the majority position in order

to maintain “the unity” of the organisation. If “the minority were to

consider sacrificing its view point an impossibility” then further

“discussion” would occur. This would either culminate in an agreement

being formed such that “two divergent opinions and tactics” co-existed

with one another or there would be “a split with the minority breaking

away from the majority to found a separate organisation” (Group of

Russian Anarchists Abroad 1926b, 218).

The position that decisions passed by majority vote should be binding on

every member of the organisation was not a uniquely platformist one. The

CNT’s constitution, which was printed on each membership card, declared

that “Anarcho-syndicalism and anarchism recognise the validity of

majority decisions”. Although the CNT recognised “the sovereignty of the

individual” and a militant’s right to have their own point of view and

defend it, members of the CNT were “obliged to comply with majority

decisions” and “accept and agree to carry out the collective mandate

taken by majority decision” even when they are against a militant’s “own

feelings”. This position was justified on the grounds that, “[w]ithout

this there is no organisation” (Quoted in Peirats 1974, 19–20).

Members of the CNT did nonetheless disagree about whether or not this

system of majority voting, in which decisions were binding on all

members, should be applied to much smaller specific anarchist

organisations. The Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) was a specific

anarchist organisation composed of affinity groups. These affinity

groups had between 4 and 20 members. The FAI initially made most of

their decisions via unanimous agreement and rarely used voting. In 1934

the Z and Nervio affinity groups pushed for the FAI to adopt binding

agreements established through majority vote. The Afinidad affinity

group agreed with the necessity of such a system within the CNT but

opposed it being implemented within small specific anarchist

organisations or affinity groups. After a confrontational FAI meeting

Afinidad left the organisation in protest (Ealham 2015, 77; Guillamón

2014, 28–9).

Conclusion

Having systematically gone through the evidence, it is clear that modern

and historical anarchists advocate the same core positions. What many

modern anarchists label as democracy without the state, historical

anarchists just called free association or anarchy. At least one

historical anarchist, Maximoff, referred to anarchism as democracy

without the state several decades before it became a popular expression.

Historical anarchists made decisions via majority vote, unanimous

agreement or a combination of the two. Modern anarchists use the same

basic systems of decision-making. The main difference is that modern

anarchists often use consensus decision-making processes, which

historical anarchists did not use.

This, in turn, raises the question of whether or not anarchists should

use the language of democracy. In a society where people have been

socialised to view democracy as a good thing, it can be beneficial to

describe anarchism as a kind of direct democracy. Yet doing so also

comes with potential downsides, such as people confusing anarchism for

the idea that society should be run by an extremely democratic state

that makes decisions within general assemblies and then imposes these

decisions on everyone via the institutionalised violence of the law,

police and prisons. Independently of what language modern anarchists

choose to use, our task remains the same as historical anarchists:

during the course of the class struggle we must develop, through a

process of experimentation in the present, the forms of association,

deliberation and decision-making which simultaneously enable effective

action and prefigure a society with neither master nor subject.

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