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Title: Follow the leader?
Author: Alan MacSimoin
Date: 1993
Language: en
Topics: leaders, leadership, Workers Solidarity
Source: Retrieved on 10th October 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws93/leader38.html
Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 38 — Spring 1993.

Alan MacSimoin

Follow the leader?

A CYNICAL EYE is directed at anarchists whenever they speak of

organisation. Is not anarchism the opposite to organisation? The simple

answer is NO. Is it then the opposite of large or complicated

organisation. The answer is equally simple, NO. So where do such

mistaken ideas come from?

Anarchists want an end to the present system and its replacement by a

socialism that is indivisible from freedom. Being just as realistic and

practical as anyone else they know that the bosses are well organised

and have the forces of the state at their disposal. To bring about such

a fundamental change will require a very high degree of organisation. So

where do the accusations that anarchists are incapable of organisation

come from?

It is not just that our opponants will tell lies about us. Of course

that happens, one only has to read the papers of Leninist groupings who

take great delight in using the word ‘anarchy’ to describe chaos. These

groupings do not have the excuse of ignorance, their misrepresentation

is a case of petty and childish slander. But this hardly explains the

confusion as their readership is not exactly massive. However similar

misrepresentations in the Independent, Press, Herald, Times, Star,

Examiner, Newsletter, Irish News, Echo, on radio and TV do have such an

effect that the anarchism = chaos idea is widely accepted by those who

have not yet met an anarchist.

ARE RULERS NECESSARY?

This is not to claim that there is a conspiracy by broadcasters and

newspaper editors to tell lies about anarchists. That would be quite an

absurd proposition to put forward in Ireland today. Our numbers do not

yet inspire so much fear in the ruling class that they would go to such

lengths. The reason is that anarchists reject the view that there must

always be a division of people into rulers and ruled. The rich and

powerful (and those who would like to be rich and powerful) cannot

accept this. In their eyes, because of their own sense of superiority

and self-importance, to live without rulers could only lead to chaos.

The working class, they believe, are too stupid to run their own lives,

let alone the whole of society. They are absolutely convinced that the

absence of a small ruling group can only lead to disorder.

So then, what type of organisation should we seek to build? Two forms

are possible. The first is the one we are all used to whether it be the

DĂĄil, in our trade union or even in a campaigning group. This is a

structure where the decisions are made at the top and most of the

electorate/members have no effective say in the decision making process.

We are expected to simply obey. Though the handful of people at the top

may have been elected we have no real control over them. In no way are

they really accountable to the rest of us.

PACK OF LIARS

In recent years the best example was the Fianna Fáil slogan of “Health

cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped”. As soon as they got

their behinds onto cabinet seats they proceeded to savage the health

service, breaking all their election promises. And when health workers,

other trade unionists and concerned individuals took to the streets in

protest we were told that our behaviour was undemocratic, that we should

abide by the democratic election result!

Organisation based on a small leadership telling everyone else what to

do is always opposed by anarchists. We have no desire to be ruled,

ordered round or dictated to. But is this not an unrealistic position

that takes no account of the real world? Back in 1912 miners in South

Wales began a discussion[1] about structures in their union. They looked

at both sides of the leadership issue. Although that was eighty one

years ago, what they found still provides food for though today and it

is worth quoting from. (The language of their document reflects both the

sexist ideas of those times and the lack of women in the mining

industry).

One decided man, who knows his own mind is stronger than a hesitating

crowd. It takes time for a number of people to agree upon a given

policy. One man soon makes up his mind.

As a responsible leader, he knows that his advice is almost equivalent

to a command, and this ensures that his advice will have been carefully

and gravely considered before being tendered.

All too frequently, ‘What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business’,

and if no one stands in a position to ensure order and system, many

things are omitted which will cause the men’s interest to suffer.

In the sphere of public usefulness there is a great field of emulation.

The good wishes of the masses can only be obtained by new aspirants for

office showing a higher status of ability than the then existing

leaders. This tends to his continued efficiency or elimination.

Hero worship has great attractions for the hero, and a leader has great

inducements on this side, apart from pecuniary considerations to remain

faithful and honest.

Leadership implies power held by the leader. Without power the leader is

inept. The possession of power inevitably leads to corruption. All

leaders become corrupt, in spite of their own good intentions. No man

was ever good enough, or strong enough, to have such power at his

disposal, as real leadership implies.

This power of initiative, this sense of responsibility, the self respect

which comes from expressed manhood, is taken from the men, and

consolidated in the leader. The sum of their initiative, their

responsibility, their self respect becomes his.

The order and system he maintains is based upon the suppression of the

men, from being independent thinkers into being ‘the men’ or ‘the mob’.

Every argument which could be advanced to justify leadership on this

score would apply equally well to the Czar of all the Russias and his

policy of repression. In order to be effective, the leader must keep the

men in order, or he forfeits the respect of the employers and ‘the

public’, and thus becomes ineffective as a leader.

He is compelled, in order to maintain his power, to see to it that only

those who are willing to act as his drill sargeants or coercive agents

shall enjoy his patronage. In a word, he is compelled to become an

autocrat and a foe to democracy.

Sheep cannot be said to have solidarity. In obedience to a shepherd they

will go up or down, backwards or forwards as they are driven by him and

his dogs. But they have no solidarity, for that means unity and loyalty.

Unity and loyalty, not to an individual, or the policy of an individual,

but to an interest and a policy which is understood and worked for by

all.

An industrial vote will affect the lives and happiness of workmen more

than a political vote. The power to vote whether there shall or shall

not be a strike, or upon an industrial policy to be pursued by his union

will affect far more important issues to the workman’s life than the

political vote can ever touch. Hence it should be more sought after, and

its privileges jealously guarded. Think of the tremendous power going to

waste because of leadership, of the inevitable stop-block he becomes on

progress, because quite naturally, leaders examine every new proposal

and ask first how it will affect their position and power. It prevents

large and comprehensive policies being initiated and carried out which

depend on the understanding and watchfulness of the great majority.

National strikes and policies can only be carried out when the bulk of

the people see their necessity, and themselves prepare and arrange

them.”

LEADERS OR IDEAS?

Clearly the bad side of ‘leadership’ outweighs the good. The strong

leadership or rule of individuals stifles self-activity and creates

passive dependence. This is not to deny all forms of leadership.

Anarchists do seek to become a leadership, a leadership of ideas rather

than one of ‘prominent personalities’ or unaccountable representatives.

We seek to make anarchist ideas the most widely accepted and supported

within the working class.

A rejection of the ‘leadership’ idea does not mean that there is no

co-ordination, efficiency or organisation. Neither does it deny that

some people will know more about particular issues, be better speakers

or have more forceful personalities. Anarchists work for ‘bottom-up’

forms of organisation, that is with the rank and file membership

involved in taking decisions.

Such a form of organisation excludes the possibility of a ‘leadership’

emerging which would make decisions “on behalf of the members”. When

decisions are taken, accountable delegates should be appointed by the

rank and file to implement these decisions. This means that the

organisation remains under the control of the members, and not under the

control of any ‘leadership, no matter how well intentioned they may be

at the outset.

PARTY OR CHURCH?

Some “socialists” operate with the idea that there is a “crisis of

leadership”, that the working class need a leadership which will, of

course, be the Party of these “socialists”. Without the Party they can’t

change anything. The Party is to be the brains, the vanguard of the

class. Within the Party the ‘best’ members make up the Central

Committee, and the ‘best’ of these becomes the leader.

The process leads to a strict hierarchy in which policies and

instructions come from the top. Not totally dissimilar to the way the

Catholic church works. Democracy gets pushed into the background, if it

doesn’t get lost completely (as happened in the Communist Parties and

many of the Trotskyist ones).

This sort of set-up will lead workers nowhere except to more

exploitation and dictatorship as it did in Russia and China. Anarchists,

reject the ‘top-down’, or capitalist, form of organisation because we

know that the means you use will determine what you end up with. A

hierarchical and authoritarian organisation can only result in a

hierarchical and authoritarian society.

Those who would dismiss our objections as ‘nit picking’ and our

alternative as ‘inefficient’ or ‘unworkable’ usually do so because they

regard their ‘leadership’ as all-important. They pay lip service to

Marx’s statement that the emancipation of the working class is the task

of the working class itself but either don’t understand what he said or

they disagree with it but won’t say so because to disagree with Marx is

regarded as a type of heresy in many left wing circles.

Anarchists have no objection to organisation. They are all for it. They

were a major force within the first international socialist

organisation, the International Working Mens Association. They were the

driving force behind building trade unions in many countries including

the USA, Argentina, France, Italy, Portugal, Korea, Russia, Switzerland,

Poland and many others. More books have been published about the Spanish

Civil War than any other, so how is it that Leninists still claim that

anarchists have never been capable of organising when each and every one

of those books will tell you that the anarchist CNT union had over one

million members? Surely this would not have been possible without a high

degree of organisation!

All right, says the cynic, but what about today? Things are more complex

and complicated and anarchist forms of organisation could no longer

work.

We only have to look across the sea to Spain once more. The National

Confederation of Workers (CNT-AIT) with several thousand members, the

General Confederation of Workers (CGT) with at least 20,000 members, the

CEEP, better known as ‘La Co-ordinadora’ which organises 80% of the

dockers and the Agricultural Labourers Union (SOC) with about 20,000

members all operate on anarchist organisational principles. They have

found no need to abandon these principles. Neither has the 15,000 strong

Central Organisation of Workers (SAC) in Sweden, nor have the anarchist

influenced unions in other countries. (For a report of a recent

international conference attended by some of them see Workers Solidarity

no. 34.)

[1] The Miners Next Step, Unofficial Reform Committee. Tonypandy, Wales.

1912.