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Title: Manifesto of Libertarian Communism Author: Federation Communiste Libertaire Date: 1953 Language: en Topics: organization, platform, platformism, France, Anarchist Federation, Libertarian Communism, Communism Source: Retrieved on 9 August 2014 from http://libcom.org/library/manifesto-of-libertarian-communism-georges-fontenis
The âManifesto of Libertarian Communismâ was written in 1953 by Georges
Fontenis for the Federation Communiste Libertaire of France. It is one
of the key texts of the anarchist-communist current.
It was preceeded by the best work of Bakunin, Guillaume, Malatesta,
Berneri, the organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists
written by Makhno, Arshinov and Mett, which sprang from the defeats of
the Russian Revolution, and the statements of the Friends of Durruti,
also a result of another defeat, that of the Spanish Revolution.
Like the âPlatformâ it pitted itself against the âSynthesisâ of Faure
and Voline which attempted a compromise between Stirnerite
individualism, anarcho-syndicalism, and libertarian communism. Like the
âPlatformâ it reaffirmed the class-struggle nature of anarchism and
showed how it had sprung from the struggles of the oppressed. It had the
experience of another thirty years of struggle and was a more developed
document than the âPlatformâ. However it failed to take account of the
role of women in capitalist society and offered no specific analysis of
womenâs oppression. Whilst the F.C.L. was very active in the struggle
against French colonialism in North Africa, it failed to incorporate an
analysis of racism into its Manifesto.
It rejected, rightly, the concept of the âDictatorship of the
Proletariatâ and the âTransitional Periodâ. Where it made mistakes was
in the use of the concepts of the âpartyâ and the âvanguardâ. To be fair
the word âpartyâ had been used in the past by Malatesta to describe the
anarchist movement, but the association with social-democrats and
Leninists had given it connotations which can only be avoided by
dropping the term. Similarly, âvanguardâ had been used extensively, by
anarchists in the past to describe, not the Leninist vanguard, but a
group of workers with advanced ideas. The term was used, for example, in
this respect in the Spanish movement (see Bookchinâs writings on the
subject), and also by anarchist-communists in the United States who
named their paper âVanguardâ (see the memoirs of Sam Dolgoff). However,
it has too many unhappy associations with Leninism. Whilst we recognise
that there exist advanced groups of workers, and that the anarchist
movement has ideas in advance of most of the class, we must recognise
fully the great creativity of the whole of the working class. There
exist contradictions between advanced groups and the class as a whole,
complex contradictions which cannot be explained in simple black and
white terms, which could lead to the Leninist danger of substituting a
group for the whole class. The anarchist-communist Organisation should
be aware of these problems and attempt to minimalise these
contradictions. True, the Manifesto sees this vanguard as internal to
the class, rather than an external vanguard of professional
revolutionaries as Lenin saw it. Nevertheless the term should be
regarded with great suspicion.
The Manifesto continued the arguments for effective libertarian
Organisation and ideological and tactical unity, based on the class
struggle. The supporters of the manifesto made a number of political
mistakes in the actions that they took. Unity was interpreted in a
narrow sense, and soon they strayed off into the fiasco of running
ârevolutionaryâ candidates in the elections, which led to the break-up
of their Organisation.
Like the âPlatformâ the âManifestoâ is marred by a number of errors,
with the âPlatform it was the idea of the âexecutive committeeâ, with
the âManifestoâ it was the idea of the âvanguardâ. Despite its
shortcomings it is still an important document, and its best features
must be taken notice of in developing an anarchist-communist theory and
strategy for today.
It was in the 19^(th) Century, when capitalism was developing and the
first great struggles of the working class were taking place â and to be
more precise it was within the First International (1861â1871) â that a
social doctrine appeared called ârevolutionary socialismâ (as opposed to
reformist or statist legalist socialism). This was also known as
âanti-authoritarian socialismâ or âcollectivismâ and then later as
âanarchismâ, âanarchist communismâ or âlibertarian communismâ.
This doctrine, or theory, appears as a reaction of the organised
socialist workers. It is at all events linked to there being a
progressively sharpening class struggle. It is an historical product
which originates from certain conditions of history, from the
development of class societies â and not through the idealist critique
of a few specific thinkers.
The role of the founders of the doctrine, chiefly Bakunin, was to
express the true aspirations of the masses, their reactions and their
experiences, and not to artificially create a theory by relying on a
purely ideal abstract analysis or on earlier theories. Bakunin â and
with him James Guillaume, then Kropotkin, Reclus, J. Grave, Malatesta
and so on â started out by looking at the situation of the workers
associations and the peasant bodies, at how they organised and fought.
That anarchism originated in class struggles cannot be disputed.
How is it then that anarchism has very often been thought of as a
philosophy, a morality or ethic independent of the class struggle, and
so as a form of humanism detached from historical and social conditions?
We see several reasons for this. On the one hand, the first anarchist
theoreticians sometimes sought to trust to the opinions of writers,
economists and historians who had come before them (especially Proudhon,
many of whose writings do undoubtedly express anarchist ideas).
The theoreticians who followed them have even sometimes found in writers
like La Boetie, Spencer, Godwin, Stirner, etc. ideas which are analogous
to anarchism â in the sense that they demonstrate an opposition to the
forms of exploitative societies and to the principles of domination they
discovered in them. But the theories of Godwin, Stirner, Tucker and the
rest are simply observations on society â they donât take account of
History and the forces which determine it, or of the objective
conditions which pose the problem of Revolution.
On the other hand, in all societies based on exploitation and domination
there have always been individual or collective acts of revolt,
sometimes with a communist and federalist or truly democratic content.
As a result, anarchism has sometimes been thought of as the expression
of peoplesâ eternal struggle towards freedom and justice â a vague idea,
insufficiently grounded in sociology or history, and one that tends to
turn anarchism into a vague humanism based on abstract notions of
âhumanityâ and âfreedomâ. Bourgeois historians of the working class
movement are always ready to mix up anarchist communism with
individualist and idealist theories, and are to a great extent
responsible for the confusion. These are the ones who have attempted to
bring together Stirner and Bakunin.
By forgetting the conditions of anarchismâs birth, it has sometimes been
reduced to a kind of ultraliberalism and lost its materialist,
historical and revolutionary character.
But at any rate, even if revolts previous to the 19^(th) Century and
ideas of certain thinkers on the relations between individual people and
human groups did prepare the way for anarchism, there was no anarchism
and doctrine until Bakunin.
The works of Godwin for example express the existence of class society
very well, even if they do so in an idealist and confused way. And the
alienation of the individual by the group, the family, religion, the
state, morality, etc. is certainly of a social nature, is certainly the
expression of a society divided into castes or classes.
It can be said that attitudes, ideas and ways of acting of people we
could call rebels, non-conformers, or anarchists in the vague sense of
the term have always existed.
But the coherent formulation of an anarchist communist theory dates from
the end of the 19^(th) Century and is continued each day, perfecting
itself and becoming more precise.
So anarchism could not be assimilated to a philosophy or to an abstract
or individualist ethic.
It was born in and out of the social, and it had to wait for a given
historic period and a given state of class antagonism for anarchist
communist aspirations to show themselves clearly for the phenomenon or
revolt to result in a coherent and complete revolutionary conception.
Since anarchism is not an abstract philosophy or ethic it cannot address
itself to the abstract person, to the person in general. For anarchism
there does not exist in our societies the human being full stop: there
is the exploited person of the despoiled classes and there is the person
of the privileged groups, of the dominant class. To speak to the person
is to fall into the error or sophism of the liberals who speak to the
âcitizenâ without taking into account the economic and social conditions
of the citizens. And to speak to the person in general while, neglecting
the fact that there are classes and there is a class struggle, while
satisfying oneself with hollow rhetorical statements on Freedom and
Justice â in a general sense and with capital letters â is to allow all
the bourgeois philosophers who appear to be liberals but are in fact
conservatives or reactionaries to infiltrate anarchism, to pervert it
into a vague humanitarianism, to emasculate the doctrine, the
organisation and the militants. There was a time, and to be honest this
is still the case in some countries within certain groups, when
anarchism degenerated into the tear-shedding of absolute pacifism or of
a kind of sentimental Christianity. It had to react to this and now
anarchism is taking up the attack on the old world with something other
than woolley thoughts.
It is to the robbed, the exploited, the proletariat, the worker and
peasants that anarchism, as a social doctrine and revolutionary method,
speaks â because only the exploited class, as a social force, can make
the revolution.
Do we mean by this that the working class constitutes the messiah-class,
that the exploited have a providential clear-sightedness, every good
quality and no faults? That would be to fall into idolising the worker,
into a new kind of metaphysics.
But the class that is exploited, alienated, conned and defrauded, the
proletariat â taken in its broad sense and made up of both the
working-class as properly defined (composed of manual workers who have a
certain common psychology, a certain way of being and thinking) and
other waged people such as clerical workers; or to put it another way
the mass of individuals whose only function in production and in the
political order is to carry out orders and so who are removed from
control â this class alone can overthrow power and exploitation through
its economic and social position. The producers alone can bring about
workers control and what would the revolution be if it were not the
transition to control by all the producers?
The proletarian class is therefore the revolutionary class above all,
because the revolution it can bring about is a social and not just a
political revolution â in setting itself free it frees all humanity; in
breaking the power of the privileged class it abolishes classes.
Certainly nowadays there arenât precise boundaries between the classes.
It is during various episodes of the class struggle that division
occurs. There are not precise boundaries but there are two poles â
proletariat and bourgeoisie (capitalists, bureaucrats etc.); the middle
classes are split in periods of crisis and move towards one pole or the
other; they are unable to provide a solution by themselves as they have
neither the revolutionary characteristics of the proletariat, nor real
control of contemporary society like the bourgeoisie as properly
defined. In strikes for example you may see that one section of the
technicians (especially those who are specialists, those in the research
departments for example) rejoins the working class while another
(technicians who fill higher staff positions and most people in
supervisory roles) moves away from the working-class, at least for a
time. Trade Union practice has always relied on trial-and-error, on
pragmatism, unionising certain sectors and not others according to their
role and occupation. In any case, it is occupation and attitude that
distinguish a class more than salary.
So there is the proletariat. There is its most determined, most active
part, the working class as properly defined. There is also something
wider than the proletariat and which includes other social strata that
must be won over to action: this is the mass of the people, which
comprises small peasants, poor artisans and so on as well as the
proletariat.
Itâs not a question of falling for some kind of proletarian mystique but
of appreciating this specific fact: the proletariat, even though it is
slow to seize awareness and despite its retreats and defeats, is
ultimately the only real creator of Revolution.
Bakunin: âUnderstand that since the proletarian, the manual worker, the
common labourer, is the historic representative of the worlds last
slave-system, their emancipation is everyones emancipation, their
triumph the final triumph of humanity...â
Certainly it happens that people belonging to privileged social groups
break with their class, and with its ideology and its advantages, and
come to anarchism. Their contribution is considerable but in some sense
these people become proletarians.
For Bakunin again, the socialist revolutionaries, that is the
anarchists, speak to âthe working masses in both town and country,
including all people of good will from the upper classes who, making a
clean break with their past, would join them unreservedly and accept
their programme in full.â
But for all that you canât say that anarchism speaks to the abstract
person, to the person in general, without taking into account their
social status.
To deprive anarchism of its class character would be to condemn it to
formlessness, to an emptiness of content, so that it would become an
inconsistent philosophical pastime, a curiosity for intelligent
bourgeois, an object of sympathy for people longing to have an ideal, a
subject for academic discussion.
So we conclude: Anarchism is not a philosophy of the individual or of
the human being in a general sense.
Anarchism is if you like a philosophy or an ethic but in a very
specific, very concrete sense. It is so by the desires it represents, by
the goals that it gets: as Bakunin says â â(The proletarians) triumph is
humanityâs final triumph...â
Proletarian, class based in origin, it is only in its goals that it is
universally human or, if you prefer, humanist.
It is a socialist doctrine, or to be more accurate the only true
socialism or communism, the only theory and method capable of achieving
a society without castes and classes, of bringing about freedom and
equality.
Social anarchism or anarchist communism, or again libertarian communism,
is a doctrine of social revolution which speaks to the proletariat whose
desires it represents, whose true ideology it demonstrates â an ideology
which the proletariat becomes aware of through its own experiences.
As anarchism is a social doctrine it makes itself known through an
ensemble of analyses and proposals which set out purposes and tasks, in
other words through a programme. And itâs this programme which
constitutes the shared platform for all militants in the anarchist
Organisation. Without the platform the only cooperation there could be
would be based on sentimental, vague and confused desires, and there
would not be any real unity of views. Then there would only be the
coming together under the same name of different and even opposing
ideas.
A questions arises: could the programme not be a synthesis, taking
account of what is common to people who refer to the same ideal, or more
accurately to the same or nearly the same label? That would be to seek
an artificial unity where to avoid conflicts you would only uphold most
of the time what isnât really important: youâd find a common but almost
empty platform. The experiment has been tried too many times and out of
âsynthesesâ â unions, coalitions, alliances and understandings â has
only ever come ineffectiveness and a quick return to conflict: as
reality posed problems for which each offered different or opposite
solutions the old battles reappeared and the emptiness, the uselessness
of the shared pseudo-programme â which could only be a refusal to act â
were clearly shown.
And besides, the very idea of creating a patchwork programme, by looking
for small points held in common, supposes that all the points of view
put forward are correct, and that a programme can just spring out of
peoples minds, in the abstract.
Now, a revolutionary programme, the anarchist programme, cannot be one
that is created by a few people and then imposed on the masses. Itâs the
opposite that must happen: the programme of the revolutionary vanguard,
of the active minority, can only be the expression â concise and
powerful, clear and rendered conscious and plain â of the desires of the
exploited masses summoned to make the Revolution. In other words: class
before party.
The programme should be determined by the study, the testing and the
tradition of what is constantly sought by the masses. So in working out
the programme a certain empiricism should prevail, one that avoids
dogmatism and does not substitute a plan drawn up by a small group of
revolutionaries for what is shown by the actions and thoughts of the
masses. In its turn, when the programme has been worked out and brought
to the knowledge of these masses it can only raise their awareness.
Finally, the programme as defined in this way can be modified as
analysis of the situation and the tendencies of the masses progresses,
and can be reformulated in clearer and more accurate terms.
Thought of in this way the programme is no longer a group of secondary
points which bring together â (or rather do not divide) people who may
think themselves nearly the same, but is instead a body of analyses and
propositions which is only adopted by those who believe in it and who
undertake to spread the work and make it into a reality.
But, you may say, this platform will have to be worked out, drawn up by
some individual or group. Of course, but since itâs not a question of
any old programme but of the programme of social anarchism, the only
propositions that will be accepted are those that accord with the
interests, desires, thinking and revolutionary ability of the exploited
class. Then you can properly speak of a synthesis because it is no
longer a question of discarding important things that cause division â
it is now a matter of blending into a new shared text propositions which
can unite on the essential point. Itâs the role of study meetings,
assemblies and conferences of revolutionaries to identify a programme,
then gather together again and found their Organisation on this
programme.
The drama is that several organisations claim to truly represent the
working class â reformist socialist and authoritarian communist
organisations as well as the anarchist Organisation. Only experience can
settle the matter, can definitely decide which one is right.
There is no possible revolution unless the mass of people who will
create it gather together on the basis of a certain ideological unity,
unless they act with the same mind. This means for us that through their
own experiences the masses will end up by finding the path of
libertarian communism. This also means that anarchist doctrine is never
complete as far as its detailed views and application are concerned and
that it continuously creates and completes itself in the light of
historical events.
From partial trials such as the Paris Commune, the popular revolution in
Russia in 1917, the Makhnovists, the achievements in Spain, strikes, the
fact that the working class is experiencing the hard realities of total
or partial state socialism (from the USSR to nationalisations to the
treacheries of the political parties of the West) â from all this it
seems possible to state that the anarchist programme, with all the
modifications it is open to, represents the direction in which the
ideological unity of the masses will be revealed.
For the moment, let us content ourselves with summarising this programme
so â society without classes and without State.
We have seen, with regard to the problem of the programme, what our
general idea is of the relation between the oppressed class and the
revolutionary Organisation defined by a programme (that is, the party in
the true sense of the word). But we canât just say âclass before partyâ
and leave it at that. We must expand on this, explain how the active
minority, the revolutionary vanguard, is necessary without it becoming a
military-type leadership, a dictatorship over the masses. In other
words, we must show that the anarchist idea of the active minority is in
no way elitist, oligarchical or hierarchical.
There is an idea which says that the spontaneous initiative of the
masses is enough for every revolutionary possibility.
Itâs true that history shows us some events that we can regard as
spontaneous mass advances, and these events are precious because they
show the abilities and resources of the masses. But that doesnât lead at
all to a general concept of spontaneity â this would be fatalistic. Such
a myth leads to populist demagogy and justification of unprincipled
rebellism; it can be reactionary and end in a wait-and-see policy and
compromise.
Opposed to this we find a purely voluntarist idea which gives the
revolutionary initiative only to the vanguard Organisation. Such an idea
leads to a pessimistic evaluation of the role of the masses, to an
aristocratic contempt for their political ability to concealed direction
of revolutionary activity and so to defeat. This idea in fact contains
the germ of bureaucratic and Statist counter-revolution.
Close to the spontaneist idea we can see a theory according to which
mass organisations, unions for example, are not only sufficient for
themselves but suffice for everything. This idea, which calls itself
totally antipolitical, is in fact an economistic concept which is often
expressed as âpure syndicalismâ. But we would point out that if the
theory wants to hold good then its supporters must refrain from
formulating any programme, any final statement. Otherwise they will be
constituting an ideological Organisation, in however small a way, or
forming a leadership sanctioning a given orientation. So this theory is
only coherent if it limits itself to a socially neutral understanding of
social problems, to empiricism.
Equally removed from spontaneism, empiricism and voluntarism we stress
the need for a specific revolutionary anarchist Organisation, understood
as the conscious and active vanguard of the people.
The revolutionary vanguard certainly exercises a guiding and leading
role in relations to the movement of the masses. Arguments about this
seem pointless to us as what other use could a revolutionary
Organisation have? Its very existence attests to its leading, guiding
character. The real questions is to know how this role is to be
understood, what meaning we give to the word âleadingâ.
The revolutionary Organisation tends to be created from the fact that
the most conscious workers feel its necessity when confronted by the
unequal progress and inadequate cohesion of the masses. What must be
made clear is that the revolutionary Organisation should not constitute
a power over the masses. its role as guide should be thought of as being
to formulate and express an ideological orientation, both organisational
and tactical â an orientation specified, elaborated and adapted on the
basis of the experiences and desires of the masses. In this way the
organisationâs directives are not orders from outside but rather the
mirrored expression of the general aspirations of the people. Since the
directing function of the revolutionary Organisation cannot possibly be
coercive it can only be revealed by its trying to get its ideas across
successfully, by its giving the mass of the people a thorough knowledge
of its theoretical principles and the main lines of its tactics. It is a
struggle through ideas and through example. And if itâs not forgotten
that the programme of the revolutionary Organisation, the path and the
means that it shows, reflect the experiences and desires of the masses â
that the organised vanguard is basically the mirror of the exploited
class â then itâs clear that leading is not dictating but coordinated
orientation, that on the contrary it opposes any bureaucratic
manipulation of the masses, military style discipline or unthinking
obedience.
The vanguard must set itself the task of developing the direct political
responsibility of the masses, it must aim to increase the masses ability
to organise themselves. So this concept of leadership is both natural
and raises awareness. In the same way the better prepared, more mature
militants inside the Organisation have the role of guide and educator to
other members, so that all may become well informed and alert in both
the theoretical and the practical field, so that all may become
animators in their turn.
The organised minority is the vanguard of a larger army and takes its
reason for being from that army â the masses. If the active minority,
the vanguard, breaks away from the mass then it can no longer carry out
its proper function and it becomes a clique or a tribe.
In the final analysis the revolutionary minority can only be the servant
of the oppressed. It has enormous responsibilities but no privileges.
Another feature of the revolutionary organisationâs character is its
permanence: there are times when it embodies and expresses a majority,
which in turn tends to recognise itself in the active minority, but
there are also periods of retreat when the revolutionary minority is no
more than a ship in a storm. Then it must hold out so that it can
quickly regain its audience â the masses â as soon as circumstances
become favourable again. Even when isolated and cut off from its popular
bases it acts according to the constants of the peoples desires, holding
onto its programme despite all difficulties. It may even be led to
certain isolated acts intended to awaken the masses (acts of violence
against specific targets, insurrections). The difficulty then is to
avoid cutting yourself off from reality and becoming a sect or an
authoritarian, military-type leadership â to avoid wasting away while
living on dreams or trying to act without being understood, driven on or
followed by the mass of the people.
To prevent such degeneration the minority must maintain contact with
events and with the milieu of the exploited â it must look out for the
smallest reactions, the smallest revolts or achievements, study
contemporary society in minute detail for its contradictions, weaknesses
and possibilities for change. In his way, since the minority takes part
in all forms of resistance and action which can range with events from
demands to sabotage, from secret resistance o open revolt) it keeps the
chance of guiding and developing even the smallest disturbances.
By striving to maintain, or acquire, a wide general vision of social
events and their development, by adapting its tactics to the conditions
of the day, by being on its guard â in this way the minority stays true
to its mission and voids the risk of trailing after events, of becoming
a mere spectacle outside of and stranger to the proletariat, of being
bypassed by it. It (the minority) avoids confusing abstract reckonings
and schemes for the true desires of the proletariat. It sticks to its
programme but adapts it and corrects its errors in the light of events.
Whatever the circumstances the minority must never forget that its final
aim is to disappear in becoming identical with the masses when they
reach their highest level of consciousness in achieving the revolution.
In practise there are two ways in which the revolutionary Organisation
can influence the masses: there is work in established mass
organisations and there is the work of direct propaganda. This second
sort of activity takes place through papers and magazines, campaigns of
demands and agitation, cultural debates, solidarity actions,
demonstrations, conferences and public meetings. This direct work, which
can sometimes be done through activities organised by others, is
essential for gaining strength and for reaching certain sections of
public opinion which are otherwise inaccessible. Itâs of the utmost
importance in both workplace and community. But this sort of work
doesnât pose the problem of knowing how âdirectionâ can avoid becoming
âdictatorshipâ.
It is different for activity inside established mass organisations. But
first, what are these organisations?
They are generally of an economic character and based on the social
solidarity of their members but can have multiple functions â defence
(resistance, mutual aid), education (training for self-government)
offence (demands on the tactical level, expropriation on the strategic)
and administration. These organisations â unions, workersâ fight
committees and so on â even when taking on only one of these possible
functions offer a direct opportunity for work with the masses.
And as well as the economic structures there exist many popular
groupings through which the specific Organisation can make connections
with the masses.
These are, for example, cultural leisure and welfare associations in
which the specific Organisation may find energy, advice and experience.
Here it may spread its influence by putting across its orientation and
by fighting against the attempts of state and politicians to gain
hegemony and control: fighting for the defence of these organisations so
they can keep their own character and become centres of self government
and revolutionary mobilisation, seeds of the new society (for elements
of tomorrowâs society already exist in todayâs).
Inside all these social and economic mass organisations influence must
be exercised and strengthened not through a system of external decisions
but through the active and coordinated presence of revolutionary
anarchist militants within them â and in the posts of responsibility to
which theyâre called according to their abilities and their attitude. It
should be stressed though that militants should not let themselves get
stuck in absorbing but purely administrative duties which leave them
neither time nor opportunity to exercise a real influence. Political
opponents often try to make prisoners of militant revolutionaries in
this way.
This work of âinfiltrationâ as certain people call it should tend to
transform the specific Organisation from a minority to a majority one â
at least from the point of view of influence.
It also ought to avoid any monopolisation, which would end up having all
tasks â even those of the specific Organisation â taken over by the mass
organisation, or contrariwise would assign leadership of the mass
associations only to members of the specific Organisation, brushing
aside all other opinions. Here it must be made clear that the specific
Organisation shou@d promote and defend not just a democratic and
federalist structure and way of working in mass organisations but also
an open structure â that is, one that makes entry easy for all element&
that are not yet organised, so that the mass organisations can win over
new social forces, become more representative and more able to give to
the specific Organisation the closest possible contact with the people.
What we have said about the programme, and about the role of the
vanguard and its types of activity, clearly shows that this vanguard
must be organised. How?
It is obvious that in order to act you need a body of coherent ideas.
Contradictions and hesitations prevent ideas getting through. On the
other hand, the âsynthesisâ, or rather the conglomeration, of
ill-matched ideas which only agree on what isnât of any real importance,
can only cause confusion and canât stop itself being destroyed by the
differences which are crucial.
As well as the reasons we found in our analysis of the problem of the
programme, as well as deep ideological reasons concerning the nature of
that programme, there are practical reasons which demand that a genuine
Organisation be based on ideological unity.
The expression of this shared and unique ideology can be the product of
a synthesis â but only in the sense of the search for a single
expression of basically similar ideas with a common essential meaning.
Ideological unity is established by the programme which we looked at
earlier (and will define later on): a libertarian communist programme
which expresses the general desires of the exploited masses.
We should again make it clear the specific Organisation is not a union
or contractual understanding between individuals bringing their own
artificial ideological convictions. It arises and develops as an
organic, natural way because it corresponds to a real need. Its
development rests on a certain number of ideas which arenât just created
all of a piece but which neglect the deep desires of the exploited. So
the Organisation has a class basis although it does accept people
originally from the privileged classes and in some way rejected by them.
Using the programme as its basis the Organisation works out a general
tactical direction. This allows it to exploit all the advantages of
structure: continuity and persistence in work, the abilities and
strengths of some making up for the weaknesses of others, concentration
of efforts, economy of strength, the ability to respond to needs and
circumstances with the utmost effectiveness at any time. Tactical unity
prevents everyone flying off in all directions, frees the movement of
the disastrous effects of several sets of tactics and fighting each
other.
It is here we get the problem of working out tactics. As far as ideology
is concerned â the basic programme, the principles if you like â there
is no problem: they are recognised by everyone in the Organisation. If
there is a difference of opinion on essential matters there is a split
and the newcomer to the Organisation accepts these basic principles,
which can only be modified by unanimous agreement or at the cost of a
separation.
It is quite another matter for questions of tactics. Unanimity may be
sought but only up to the point where for it to come about would mean
everyone agreeing by deciding nothing, leave an Organisation like an
empty shell, drained of substance (and of use since the organisationâs
exact purpose is to co-ordinate forces towards a common goal). So, when
all the arguments for the different proposals have been made, when
discussion can not usefully continue, when similar opinions that agree
in principle have merged and there still remains an irreducible
opposition between the tactics proposed then the Organisation must find
a way out. And there are only four possibilities:
(a) Decide nothing, so refuse to act, and then the Organisation loses
all reason for existing.
(b) Accept the tactical differences and leave everyone to their own
positions. The Organisation can allow this in certain cases on points
that are not of crucial importance.
(c) Consult the Organisation through a vote which will allow a majority
to break off, the minority accepted that it will give up its ideas as
far as public activity is concerned but keeping the right to develop its
argument inside the Organisation â judging that if its opinions accord
with reality more closely than the majority view then they will
eventually prevail by proof of events.
Sometimes the lack of objectivity of this procedure has been invoked,
number not necessarily indicating truth, but it is the only one
possible. It is in no way coercive as it only applies because the
members of the Organisation accept it as a rule, and because the
minority accept it as a necessity, which allows the tactical proposals
accepted to be put to the test.
(d) When no agreement between majority and minority proves possible on a
crucial issue which demands the Organisation take a position then there
is, naturally and inevitably, a split.
In all cases the goal is tactical unity and if they did not try to
achieve this then conferences would just be ineffective and profitless
confrontations. Thatâs why the first possible outcome (a) â to decide
nothing â is to be rejected in every case and the second (b) â to allow
several different tactics â can only be an exceptional choice.
Of course it is only meetings where the whole Organisation is
represented which can decide the tactical line to be laid down
(conferences, congresses, etc.).
Once these general tactics (or orientation) have been decided the
problem of applying them comes up. It is obvious that if the
Organisation has laid down a line of collective action it is so that the
militant activities of every member and every group within the
Organisation will conform to this line. In cases where a majority and a
minority have drawn apart but the two sides have agreed to carry on
working together, no-one can find themselves bullied because all have
agreed to this way of acting beforehand and had a hand in the drawing up
of the âlineâ. This freely accepted discipline has nothing in common
with military discipline and passive obedience to orders. There is no
coercive machinery to impose a point of view that isnât accepted by the
whole Organisation: there is simply respect for commitments freely made,
as much for the minority as for the majority.
Of course the militants and the different levels of the Organisation can
take initiatives but only in- so far as they do not contradict
agreements and arrangements made by the proper bodies: that is, if these
initiatives are in fact applications of collective decisions. But when
particular activities involve the whole Organisation each member must
consult the Organisation through liaison with its representative organs.
So, collective action and not action decided personally by separate
militants.
Each member takes part in the activity of the whole Organisation in the
same way as the Organisation is responsible for the revolutionary and
political activity of each of its members, since they do not act in the
political domain without consulting the Organisation.
As opposed to centralism, which is the blind submission of the masses to
a centre, federalism both allows those centralisations which are
necessary and permits the autonomous decision-making of each member and
their control over the whole. It only involves the participants in what
is shared by them.
When federalism brings together groups based on material interests it
relies on an agreement and the basis for unity can sometimes be weak.
This is the case in certain sectors of union activity. But in the
revolutionary anarchist Organisation, where itâs a question of a
programme which represents the general desires of the masses, the basis
for coming together (the principles, the programme) is more important
than any differences and unity is very strong: rather than a pact or a
contract here we should speak of a functional, organic, natural unity.
So federalism must not be understood as the right to show off your
personal whims without considering the obligations to the Organisation
that youâve taken on.
It means the understanding reached between members and groups with a
view to common work towards a shared goal â but a free understanding, a
considered union.
Such an understanding implies on the one hand that those who share it
fulfill the duties theyâve accepted completely and go along with
collective decisions; it implies on the other that the coordinating and
executive bodies be appointed and controlled by the whole Organisation
at its assemblies and congresses and that their obligations and
prerogatives be precisely established.
So it is on the following bases that an effective anarchist Organisation
can exist:
Before we show the goals and solutions of libertarian communism we must
examine what kind of enemy weâre faced with.
From what we can know of human history we see that ever since human
societies have been divided into classes (and especially since the
division of social labour), there have been conflicts between the social
classes and, from the earliest demands and revolts, as if a chain of
struggles fought for a better life and a more just society.
Anarchist analysis considers that modern day society, like all those
which came before it, is not a single unit â it is divided into two very
different camps, different as much in their situation as in their social
function: the proletariat (in the broad sense of the word) and the
bourgeoisie.
Added to this is the fact of the class struggle, whose character may
vary â sometimes complex and imperceptible, sometimes open, rapid and
easy to see.
This struggle is very often masked by clashes of secondary interests,
conflicts between groups of the same class, complex historical events
which at first sight donât have any direct connection with the existence
of classes and their rivalry. Basically though this struggle is always
directed towards transforming contemporary society into a society which
would answer the needs wants and sense of justice of the oppressed and
through this, in a classless society, liberating the whole of humanity.
The structure of any society always expresses in its laws, morality and
culture the respective positions of the social classes â some exploited
and enslaved, the others holding property and authority. In modern
society economics, politics, law, morality and culture all rest on the
existence of the privileges and monopolies of one class and on the
violence organised by that class to maintain its supremacy..
The capitalist system is very often considered as the only form of
exploitative society. But capitalism is a relatively recent economic and
social form and human societies have certainly known other kinds of
slavery and exploitation since the clans, the barbarian empires, the
ancient cities, feudalism, the cities of the Renaissance and so on.
Analysis of the birth, development and evolution of capitalism was the
work of the movement of socialist theoreticians at the start of the
19^(th) Century (Marx and Engels did not more than systematise them),
but this analysis gives a poor account of the general phenomenon of
oppression by one class or another, and of its origin.
There is no point getting involved in debate as to whether authority
came before property or the other way round. The present state of
Sociology does not allow us to settle the matter absolutely, but it
seems clear that economic, political, religious and moral powers have
been closely linked from the very beginning. In any case, the role of
political power cannot be limited to its merely being the tool of
economic might powers. In that way analysis of the phenomenon of
capitalism was not accompanied by adequate analysis of the phenomenon of
the State, because people were concentrating on a very limited part of
history and only the anarchist theoreticians, especially Bakunin and
Kropotkin, strove to give its full importance to a phenomenon which too
often was limited to the State of the period of capitalismâs rise.
Today the evolution of capitalism, passing from classical capitalism to
monopoly capitalism, then to directed and to State capitalism, is giving
rise to new social forms which the summary analyses of the State can no
longer account for.
(a) It is a society of rival classes where the exploiting class owns and
controls the means of production.
(b) In capitalist society all goods â including the power of waged
labour â are commodities.
(c) The supreme love of capitalism, the motive for the production of
goods, is not peoples needs but the increasing of profit, that is the
surplus produced by workers, the extra to what is absolutely necessary
for them to stay alive.
This surplus is also called plus-value.
(d) Increase in the productivity of labour is not followed by the
valorisation of capital which is limited (under-consumption). This
contradiction, which is expressed by the âtendency to fall of the rate
of profitâ, creates periodic crises which lead the owners of capital to
all sorts of carry-ons: cut-backs in production, destruction of produce,
unemployment, wars and so on.
Capitalism Has Evolved:
(1) Pre-capitalist era: from the end of the Middle Ages the merchant and
banking bourgeoisie develops within the feudal economy.
(2) Classical or Liberalist or Private Capitalism: individualism of the
owners of capital, competition and expansion (after the early
accumulation of capital, by dispossession, pillage, ruin of the peasant
population etc. the capitalism which has established itself in Western
Europe has a world to conquer, enormous sources of wealth and markets
which appear to be vast).
The bourgeois revolutions, by getting rid of feudal restraints, help the
new system to develop.
It is industrialisation and technical progress which have been the basis
for the existence of the capitalist mode of production and for the
transition from the mercantile bourgeoisie of the 15^(th), 16^(th) and
17^(th) Centuries to the industrialist capitalist bourgeoisie. They
continue to develop.
Throughout this period crises are infrequent and not too serious. The
state plays a background role as competition gets rid of the weak â it
is the free play of the system. It is the time of gas and coal in the
technical sphere; of property, the individual boss, competition and free
trade in the economic; parliamentarianism in the political; total
exploitation and the most dreadful poverty of the wage-earners in the
social.
(3) Monopoly Capitalism or Imperialism: productivity increases but
markets constrict or donât increase at their previous rate. Fall in the
rate of profit of over accumulated capital.
Agreements (trusts, cartels, etc.) replace competition, joint-stock
companies replace the individual boss, protectionism intervenes, the
export of capital comes to be added to that of commodities, financial
credit plays a major role, the merger of banking capital with industrial
capital creates financier capital which tames the state and calls on its
intervention.
It is the time of petrol and electricity in the technical sphere; of
agreements, protectionism, the over-accumulation of capital and the
tendency to fall of the rate of profit, of crises in the economic; of
wars, imperialism and the growth of the State in the political. War is
essential if crises are to overcome â destruction frees markets. In the
social sphere: poverty for the working class but social legislation
limits certain aspects of exploitation.
(4) State Capitalism: everything that characterised the previous stage
is accentuated. Wars are no longer enough to overcome crises. A
permanent war economy is needed which will invest huge amounts of
capital in the war industries while adding nothing to a market already
over-congested stuffed with goods; an appreciable profit is procured by
State orders.
This period is characterised by the Stateâs seizure of the most
important sections of the economy, of the labour market.
The State becomes capitalism â client, purveyor and overseer of works
and labour power â and so assures itself of every increasing control of
planning, culture and so on.
Bureaucracy develops, discipline and regulation are imposed on labour.
Exploitation and the wage earning class remain, as do the other
essential features of capitalism, but with the appearance of socialising
forms (regulations, Social Security, retirement pensions) which mark the
enslavement of more and more of the proletariat.
State capitalism has various forms: German National Socialism, Stalinist
National Socialism, ever increasing state control in the âdemocraciesâ
but appearing in a comparatively restricted form (due to a still vast
reserve of plus value from their colonies). Politically as economically
this period tends to take on a totalitarian form.
So Statism reveals itself in forms simultaneously political, economic
and cultural: State finance, war economy, huge public works, conscripted
labour, concentration camps, forced movement of populations, ideologies
which justify the totalitarian order of things (for example, a
counterfeit version of Marxist-Leninist ideology in the USSR, race in
Hitlerâs National Socialism, Ancient Rome in Mussoliniâs Fascism, etc.).
If capitalism, despite its transformations, or its adaptations, helps
its permanent features (plus value, crises, competition, etc.) ... the
State can no longer be regarded simply as the public Organisation of
repression in the hands of the ruling class, the agent of the
bourgeoisie, capitalismâs copper.
An examination of the forms of the State previous to the period of the
rise of capitalism, and of the present day forms of the State, leads us
to see the State as being important other than just as an instrument.
The Mediaeval, the State of the absolute monarchies of Europe, the State
of the Pharaohs etc... were realities in their own right, they
constituted the ruling State â Class.
And the State of the imperialist stage of capitalism, the State of
today, is tending away from being superstructure to itself becoming
âstructureâ.
For the ideologies of the bourgeoisie the State is the regulator organ
is modern society. This is true, but it is that because of a form of
society which is the enslavement of a majority to a minority. It is
therefore the organised violence of the bourgeoisie against the workers,
it is the tool of the ruling class. But alongside this instrumental
aspect it is tending to acquire a functional character, itself becoming
the organised ruling class. It is tending to overcome the conflicts
between the controlling groups on politics and economics. It is tending
to fuse the forces which hold political and economic power, the
different sectors of the bourgeoisie, into a single bloc, whether to
increase its capacity for internal repression or to add to its expansive
power abroad. It is moving towards the unity of politics and economics,
extending its hegemony over all activities, integrating the trade unions
etc ... transferring the waged worker as properly defined into a modern
serf, completely enslaved but with a minimum of safeguards (allowances,
Social Security, etc). It is no longer an instrument but a power in
itself.
At this stage, which is being brought about in every country, even the
U.S.A., was attempted by Nazism and almost perfectly attained in the
USSR, one may wonder if it is still correct to speak of capitalism:
perhaps this level of development of the imperialist stage of capitalism
should not rather be seen as a new form of exploitive society which is
already something other than capitalism? The difference then would be no
longer quantitative but qualitative: it would no longer be a question of
a degree of capitalismâs evolution but of something else, something
really quite new and different. But this is chiefly a matter of
appreciation, of terminology, which may seem premature and without real
importance at present.
It is enough for us to express as follows the form of exploitation and
slavery towards which bourgeois society is tending: the State as a class
apparatus and as Organisation of the class, simultaneously instrumental
and functional, superstructure and structure, is tending to unify all
the powers, every form of domination, of the bourgeoisie over the
proletariat.
Libertarian Communist Programme
We have tried to summarise as clearly as possible the characteristics of
the bourgeois society which the Revolution has the goal of doing away
with as it creates a new society: the anarchist communist society.
Before examining how we see the Revolution we must make clear the
essential qualities of this Libertarian Communist Society.
Communism: From the lower to the higher state or complete communism
You could not define communist society any better than by repeating the
old âFrom each according to their means, to each according to their
needs.â First it affirms the total subordination of the economic to the
needs of human development in the abundance of goods, the reduction of
social labour and of each persons part in it to their own strengths, to
their actual abilities. So the formula expresses the possibility for
peoples total development.
Secondly, this formula implies the disappearance of classes and the
collective ownership and use of the means of production, as only such
use by the community can allow distribution according to needs.
But the complete communism of the formula âto each according to their
needsâ presupposes not only collective ownership (administered by
workers councils or âsyndicatesâ or âcommunesâ) but equally an extended
growth in production, abundance in fact. Now, its for sure that when the
Revolution comes conditions wonât allow this higher stage of communism:
the situation of scarcity signifies the persistence of the economic over
the human and so a certain limit. Then the application of communism is
no longer that of the principle âto each according to their needsâ, but
only equality of income or equality of conditions, which amounts to
equal rations or even distributing through the medium of monetary tokens
(of limited validity and having the sole function of distributing those
products which are neither so rare as to be strictly rationed nor so
plentiful as to be âhelp yourselfâ) â this system would allow the
consumers to decide for themselves how to spend their income. It has
even been envisaged that people might follow the formula âto each
according to their workâ, taking account of the backwardness in thinking
of certain categories attached to ideas of hierarchy â considering it
necessary to carry on with differential wage rates or to give advantages
like cuts in work time so as to maintain or increase production in
certain âinferiorâ or not very attractive activities, or to obtain the
maximum productive effort or again to bring about work force movements.
But the importance of these differentials would be minimal and even in
its lower stage (which some call socialism) the communist society tends
towards as great an equalisation as possible and an equivalence of
conditions.
A society in which collective ownership and the principles of equality
have been realised cannot be a society where economic exploitation
persists or where there is a new form of class rule. It is precisely the
negation of those things.
And this is true even for the lower phase of communism which, even if it
shows a degree of economic constraint, in no way justifies the
persistence of exploitation. Otherwise, since it nearly always starts
off from a situation of scarcity the revolution would be automatically
utterly negated. The libertarian communist revolution does not realise
from the start a perfect society, or even a highly developed one, but it
does destroy the bases of exploitation and domination. It is in this
sense that Voline spoke of âimmediate but progressive revolution.â
But there is another problem: the problem of the State, the problem of
what type of political, economic and social Organisation weâll have.
Certainly the Marxist Leninist schools envisage the disappearance of the
State in the higher stage of communism but they consider the State a
necessity in its lower stage.
This so called âworkersâ or âproletarianâ State is thought of as
organised coercion, made necessary by the inadequacy of economic
development, lack of progress of human abilities and â at least for an
initial period â the fight against the remnants of the former ruling
classes defeated by the Revolution, or more exactly the degree of
revolutionary territory within and without.
What is our idea of the kind of economic administration the communist
society could have?
Workers administration of course, administration by the whole body of
producers. Now we have seen that as the exploiting society was
increasingly realizing the unification of power, the conditions of
exploitation were decreasingly private property, the market,
competition, etc...and in this way economic exploitation political
coercion and ideological mystification were becoming intimately linked,
the essential basis of power and the line of class division between
exploiters and exploited being the administration of production.
In these conditions the essential act of revolution, the abolition of
exploitation, is brought about through workers control and this control
represents the system for replacing all authorities. It is the whole
body of producers which manages, which organises, which realises
self-administration, true democracy, freedom in economic equality, the
abolition of privileges and of minorities who direct and exploit, which
arranges for economic necessities and for the needs of the Revolutionâs
defence. Administration of things replaces government of human beings.
If the abolition of the distinction in the economic field between those
who give orders and those who carry them out is accompanied by the
maintenance of this distinction in the political field, in the form of
the dictatorship of a party or a minority, then it will either not last
five minutes or will create a conflict between producers and political
bureaucrats. So workers control must realise the abolition of all power
held by a minority, of all manifestations of State. It can no longer be
a question of one class dominating and leading, but rather of management
and administration, in the political as much as the economic arena, by
the mass economic organisations, the communes, the people in arms. It is
the peoples direct power, it is not a State. If this is what some call
the dictatorship of the proletariat the term is of doubtful use (weâll
come back to this) but it certainly has nothing in common with the
dictatorship of the Party or any bureaucracy. It is simply true
revolutionary democracy.
So anarchist communism, or libertarian communism, in realizing the
society,of humanityâs full development, a society of fully human women
and men, opens up an era of permanent progression, of gradual
transformation, of transitions.
It does then create a humanism of purpose, whose ideology originates
within class society, in the course of the class strugglesâ development,
a humanism which has nothing in common with fraudulent pronouncements on
the abstract human being whom the liberal bourgeois try to point out to
us in their class society.
And so the Revolution â based on the power of the masses of the
proletariat as it frees the exploited class frees all humanity.
The Libertarian Communist Programme
Now that we have looked in broad outline at the forms in which the power
of the ruling class is expressed, and set out the essential
characteristics of libertarian communism, it remains for us to say in
detail how we see the passage of Revolution. Here we touch on a crucial
aspect of anarchism and one which differentiates it most clearly from
all other currents of socialism.
Should the Revolution, that is the transition from the class society to
the classless libertarian communist society, be thought of as a slow
process of transformation or as an insurrection?
The foundations of the communist society are laid within the society
based on exploitation; new technical and economic conditions, new
relations between classes, new ideas, all come into conflict with the
old institutions and bring about a crisis which demands a quick and
decisive resolution. This brings a transformation which has long been
prepared for within the old society. The Revolution is the moment when
the new society is born as it smashes the framework of the old: State
capitalism and bourgeois ideologies. it is a real and concrete passage
between two worlds. So the Revolution can only happen in objective
conditions: the final crisis of the class regime.
This conception has nothing in common with the old romantic idea of the
insurrection, of change brought about from one day to the next without
any preparation. Nor has it anything to do with the gradualist, purely
evolutionary conception of the reformists or of the believers in
revolution as process.
Our conception of revolution, equally removed from insurrectionalism and
from gradualism, can be described by the idea of the revolutionary act
prepared over a long period from within the bourgeoisie and at its end
by the seizure and administration of the means of production and
exchange by the organisations of the people. And it is this result of
the revolutionary act which draws a clear line of demarcation between
the old society and the new.
So the Revolution destroys the economic and political power of the
bourgeoisie. This means that the Revolution does not limit itself to
physically suppressing the old rulers or to immobilising the machinery
of government but that it succeeds in destroying the legal institutions
of the State: its laws and custom, hierarchical methods and privileges,
tradition and the cult of the State as a collective psychological
reality.
This much being granted what meaning can we give to the commonly used
expression âperiod of transitionâ which is so often seen as linked to
the idea of revolution? If it is the passage between class society and
classless society then it is being confused with the act of Revolution.
If it is the passage from the lower stage of communism to the higher
then the expression is inaccurate because the whole post-revolutionary
era constitutes a slow continuous progression, a transformation without
social upheavals, and communist society will continue to evolve.
All that can be said is what we have already made clear in connection
with libertarian communism: the act of Revolution brings an immediate
transformation in the sense that the foundations of society are
radically changed, but a progressive transformation in the sense that
communism is a constant development.
Indeed for the socialist parties and statist communists the âtransitory
periodâ represents a society which breaks with the old order of things
but keeps some elements and survivals from the capitalist an statist
system. It is therefore the negation of true revolution, since it
maintains elements of the exploitative system whose tendency is to grow
strong and expand.
The formula âdictatorship of the proletariatâ has been used to mean many
different things. If for no other reason it should be condemned as a
cause of confusion. With Marx it can just as easily mean the centralised
dictatorship of the party which claims to represent the proletariat as
it can the federalist conception of the Commune.
Can it mean the exercise of political power by the victorious working
class? No, because the exercise of political power in the recognised
sense of the term can only take place through the agency of an exclusive
group practising a monopoly of power, separating itself from the class
and oppressing it. And this is how the attempt to use a State apparatus
can reduce the dictatorship of the proletariat to the dictatorship of
the party over the masses.
But if by dictatorship of the proletariat is understood collective and
direct exercise of âpolitical powerâ, this would mean the disappearance
of âpolitical powerâ since its distinctive characteristics are supremacy
exclusivity and monopoly. It is no longer a question of exercising or
seizing political power, it is about doing away with it all together!
If by dictatorship is meant the domination of the majority by a
minority, then it is not a question of giving power to the proletariat
but to a party, a distinct political group. If by dictatorship is meant
the domination of a minority by the majority (domination by the
victorious proletariat of the remnants of a bourgeoisie that has been
defeated as a class) then the setting up of dictatorship means nothing
but the need for the majority to efficiently arrange for its defence its
own social Organisation.
But in that case the expression is inaccurate, imprecise and a cause of
misunderstandings. If âdictatorship of the proletariatâ is intended to
mean the supremacy of the working class over other exploited groups in
society (poor small owners, artisans, peasants, etc.) then the term does
not at all correspond to a reality which in fact has nothing to do with
mechanical relations between leaders and led such as the term
dictatorship implies.
To speak of âdictatorship of the proletariatâ is to express a mechanical
reversal of the situation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Now, if the bourgeois class tends through power to maintain its class
character, to identify itself with the State and to become separated
from society as a whole, it is not at all the same as the subordinate
class, which tends to leave off its class character and to merge with
the classless society. If class rule and the State represent the
organised and codified power of a group which oppresses subordinate
groups they do not account in any way for the violent force exercised
directly by the proletariat.
The terms âdominationâ, âdictatorshipâ and âstateâ are as little
appropriate as the expression âtaking powerâ for the revolutionary act
of the seizure of the factories by the workers.
We reject then as inaccurate and causes of confusion the expressions
âdictatorship of the proletariatâ, âtaking political powerâ, âworkers
stateâ, âsocialist stateâ and âproletarian stateâ.
It remains for us to examine how we see the resolution of the problems
of struggles posed by the Revolution and by its defence.
Through rejecting the idea of a State, which implies the existence and
rule of a exploiter class tending to continue as such, and rejecting the
idea of dictatorship, which implies mechanical relations between leaders
and led, we concede the need for coordination in revolutionary direct
action. (The means of production and exchange must be seized along with
the centres of administration, the revolution must be protected from
counter-revolutionary groups, from the undecided, and indeed from
backward exploited social groups (certain peasant categories for
example).
It certainly is then about exercising power but it is the rule of the
majority, of the proletariat in motion, of the armed people organising
effectively for attack and defence, establishing universal vigilance.
The experience of the Russian Revolution, of the machnovchina, of 1936
Spain is there as witness. And we cannot do better than go along with
the opinion of Camillo Berneri, who wrote from the thick of the Spanish
Revolution, refuting the Bolshevik idea of the State:
âAnarchists acknowledge the use of direct power by the proletariat but
they see the instrument of this power as constituted by the sum total of
modes of communist Organisation â corporative bodies and communal
institutions, both regional and national â freely set up outside of and
opposed to any political monopoly by party, and endeavouring to reduce
organisational centralisation to a minimum.â
And so against the idea of State, where power is exercised by a
specialised group isolated from the masses, we put the idea of direct
workers power, where accountable and controlled elected delegates (who
can be recalled at any time and are remunerated at the same rate as
other workers) replace hierarchical, specialised and privileged
bureaucracy; where militias, controlled by adminstrative bodies such as
soviets, unions and communes, with no special privileges for military
technicians, realising the idea of the armed people, replace an army cut
off from the body of Society and subordinated to the arbitrary power of
a State or government; where peoples juries responsible for setting
disputes that arise in regard to the fulfillment of agreements and
obligations replace the judicial.
As far as defence of the Revolution of concerned we must make clear that
our theoretical conception of the Revolution is of an international
phenomenon destroying all basis for counter-attack by the bourgeoisie.
It is when the international Organisation of capitalism has exhausted
all its possibilities of survival, when it has reached its final crisis
point, that we find the optimum conditions for a successful
international revolution. In this case the problem of its defence only
arises as the problem of the complete disappearance of the bourgeoisie.
Totally cut off from its economic and political power this no longer
exists as a class. Once routed, its various elements are kept under
control by the armed organs of the proletariat then absorbed by a
society which will be moving towards the highest degree of homogeneity.
And this last job must be taken care of directly, without the help of
any special bureaucratic body.
The problem of delinquency may be linked up during the revolutionary
period with that of defence of the Revolution. The disappearance of
bourgeois law and of the judicial and prison systems of class society
should not make us forget that there remain asocial people (however few
compared to the appalling number of prisoners in bourgeois society,
produced in the main by the conditions they live under â social
injustice, poverty and exploitation) and that there is the problem of
some bourgeois who cannot in any way be assimilated. The agencies of
popular direct power which we have defined earlier are obliged to
prevent them doing harm.
With a murderer, a dangerous maniac or a saboteur you cannot on the
pretext of freedom let them run off and commit the same crime again. But
their putting out of harms way by the peoples security services has
nothing in common with class societyâs degrading prison system. The
individual who is deprived of freedom should be treated more medically
than judicially until they can be safely returned into society.
However, the Revolution may not inevitably be realised everywhere at
once and there could actually be successive revolutions which will only
come together to make the universal revolution if they are spread
abroad, if the revolutionary infection catches hold, if at very least
the proletariat fights internationally for the defence and extension of
revolutionary which are at the outset limited.
Then, as well as internal defence of the Revolution, external defence
becomes necessary, but this can only take place if based on an armed
populace organised into militias and, we must emphasize, with the
support of the international proletariat and possibilities for the
revolution to expand. The Revolution dies if it lets itself be limited
and if on the pretext of defending itself it falls into restoring the
State and so class society.
But the best defence for the new society lies in it asserting its
revolutionary character because this quickly creates conditions in which
no attempt at a restoration of the bourgeoisie will find a solid base.
The total affirmation by the revolutionary territory of its socialist
character is in fact its best weapon because it creates energy and
enthusiasm at home and infection and solidarity abroad. It was perhaps
one of the most fatal errors of the Spanish Revolution that it played
down its achievements so as to devote itself above all else to the
military tasks of its defence.
The revolutionary struggle itself and then the consolidation of the
transformation created by the revolution both raise the question of the
freedom of political tendencies which lean towards the maintenance or
the restoration of exploitation. It is one of the aspects of the direct
power of the masses and of the defence of the Revolution.
It cannot be a question here of freedom as properly defined which (till
now existing only as something to be striven for) is precisely what the
Revolution brings about: the doing away with of exploitation and
alienation, government by everyone, and so active participation in
social life and true democracy for all. It cannot be a question either
of the right for all the partisan currents of classes (and so Stateless)
society to put forward their particular solutions and express their
differences of opinion. All that goes without saying.
But it is not at all the same when itâs a matter of groups and
organisations which are more or less openly opposing workers control an
the exercise of power by the massesâ organisations. And this problem is
just as, if not more, likely to come from bureaucratic pseudo-socialist
groups as from groups of the defeated bourgeoisie.
A distinction must be made. At first, during the violent phase of the
struggle, those structures and tendencies which are defending or seeking
to restore the exploitative society must be forcibly crushed. And the
enemy must not be allowed to artfully organise itself, either to
demoralise or to spy. That would be negation of the fight, surrender in
fact. Makhno and also the Spanish libertarians found themselves faced
with these problems and resolved them by suppressing the enemyâs
propaganda. But in cases where the expression of reactionary ideologies
can have no consequence for the outcome of the Revolution, as for
example when its achievements have been consolidated, these ideologies
can be expressed if they are still found interesting or if they retain
their power. They are then nothing more than a topic of curiosity and
the commitment of the people to the Revolution takes away any poison
left in them. If they are only expressed on the ideological level then
they can only be fought on that level, and not by prohibition. Total
freedom of expression, within a conscious, aware populace, can only be
creative of culture.
It remains to be made clear that the responsibility for judging and
deciding, on this question as on all others, rests with the peoples own
organisations, with the armed proletariat.
And it is in this sense that the essential freedom, that for which the
Revolution is made, is maintained and protected.
Masses
The idea of Revolution that we have just developed implies a certain
number of historical conditions: on the one hand an acute crisis of the
old society and on the other the existence of an aware mass movement and
an active minority that is well organised and well oriented.
It is the evolution of society itself which allows the development of
the proletariatâs awareness and abilities, the Organisation of its most
advanced strata and the progress of the revolutionary Organisation. But
this revolutionary Organisation reacts on the people as a whole and aims
to develop their capacity for self-government.
We have seen, in regard to relations between the revolutionary
Organisation and the masses, that in the pre-revolutionary period the
specific Organisation can only suggest ends and means and can only get
them accepted through ideological struggle and force of example.
In the revolutionary period it must be the same â otherwise the danger
is of degeneration into bureaucracy, the transformation of the anarchist
Organisation into a specialised body, into a political force separated
from the people, into a State.
The political vanguard, the active minority, can of course during the
making of the Revolution charge itself with special tasks (such as
liquidating enemy forces) but as a general rule it can only be the
consciousness of the proletariat. And it must finally be reabsorbed into
society, gradually as on the one hand its role is completed by the
consolidation of the classless society and its evolution from the lower
to the higher stage of communism, and as on the other the people as a
whole have acquired the necessary level of awareness.
Development of the peopleâs capacity for self government and
revolutionary vigilance â these must be the tasks of the specific
Organisation once the Revolution has been accomplished. The fate of the
Revolution rests to a great extent on the attitude of the specific
Organisation, on the way it sees its role. For the success of the
Revolution is not inevitable: the people may give up the fight; the
Organisation of the revolutionary minority may neglect its vigilance and
all the bases to be established for a restoration of the bourgeoisie or
a bureaucratic dictatorship â it may even transform itself into a
bureaucratic power. No use is served by hiding these dangers or by
refusing to undertake organised action to prevent them.
We must conduct the fight with a very clear head and it will be in
proportion to our clearheadedness and vigilance that the anarchist
Organisation will be able to fulfill its historic task.
When it sets out objectives to be reached, and when it specifies the
nature of the role the vanguard Organisation should take in relation to
the masses, revolutionary anarchist theory reflects a certain number of
rules of conduct. So we must clarify what we mean by âmoralityâ.
The moralities of all societies reflect to a certain extent the way of
life and the level of development of those societies, and as a result
they are expressed in very strict rules which allow no deviation in any
sense (transgression, the will to change these rules being a crime). In
this way morals (which do express a certain need in the framework of
social life) and towards inertia.
So, they do not simply express a practical need for mediation as they
may come into contradiction with new conditions of existence that
appear. Moreover, they are marked by a religious, theological or
metaphysical character and put forward their rules as the expression of
a supernatural imperative â actions which conform to or break these
rules boast a mystical nature as virtue or sin. Resignation, which
really should only be a personâs recognition of their limits before
certain facts, becomes the primary virtue and can even impel a search
for suffering, itself becoming the supreme virtue. From this point of
view Christianity is one of the most hateful of moralities. So morality
is not simply a codification of external sanctions but is deeply rooted
in individuals in the form of âmoral conscienceâ. This moral conscience
is acquired and maintained largely as a result of the religious nature
with which morality is imbued, and is itself marked by a religious,
supernatural nature. So it becomes quite foreign to the simple
translation into a personâs conscience of the needs of living socially.
Finally, and most importantly, even when moralities do not openly
express the division of societies into classes or castes they are used
by privileged groups to justify and guarantee their domination. Life law
and religion (religion, law and morality are simply expressions in
neighbouring spheres of the same social reality) morality sanctions the
existing conditions and relations of domination and exploitation.
Since moralities are expressions of peopleâs alienation in exploitative
societies, as are ideologies, laws, religions, etc... being
characterised by inertia, mystification, resignation and the
justification and maintenance of class privilege â you will understand
why anarchists have spent a lot of effort in denouncing their true
nature.
It is often pointed out that moralities could evolve or be modified,
that one morality could replace another even within societies based on
exploitation. There have been faint differences, adaptations or
variations linked up with conditions of life but they (moralities) all
protected the same essential values â submissiveness and respect for
property for example. It remains no less true that these adaptations
were fought against, that their promoters (Socrates and Christ for
example) were often persecuted, than that morality tends towards
inertia.
in any case it does not seem that the enslaved have been able to
introduce their own values into these moralities.
But the important thing here is to know if the enslaved â and the
revolutionaries who express their desires â can have their own values,
their own morality.
If we do not wish to accept the morality of the society in which we
live, if we refuse this morality both because it recognises so as to
maintain a social system based on exploitation and domination, and
because it is imbued with abstractions and metaphysical ideals, then on
what can we base our morality? There is a solution to this apparent
contradiction: it is that thought and social science allow us to
envisage a process which would constitute the possibility for the human
race to blossom out in every way, and that this process is really
nothing other than the general desires of the oppressed, as expressed by
true socialism, by libertarian communism. So it is our revolutionary
goal which is our ideal, our imperative. It is certainly an ideal and an
imperative on which a morality can be based, but it is an ideal which
rests on the real and not on the religious revelation or a metaphysics
This deal is a kind of humanism, but a humanism based on a revolutionary
transformation of society and not a sentimental humanism resting on
nothing at all and camouflaging the realities of the social struggle.
What are the moral values which demonstrate this ideal in the
proletariat?
Is this morality expressed by rules and precepts?
It is clear that it can no longer be a question of acting, and of
judging moralities that we oppose, in terms of ideas of âgoodâ and evil,
any more than we can let ourselves be dragged into futile word games as
to whether the motive force for action should be called âegoismâ or
âaltruismâ.
But between those actions normally assured by the play of affectivity
and feelings (maternal, love, empathy, saving someone who is in danger
and so on) and those which depend on contracts, on written or unwritten
agreements (and so on the law), there is a whole gamut of social
relations which rely on moral conceptions and a moral conscience.
Where is the guarantee of sincere respect in contract clauses? What
should a personâs attitude be towards their enemies? Which weapons do
they forbid themselves use of? There is only one morality which can act
as a guide, which can fix limits, which can prevent constant recourse to
litigation and juries.
It is in revolutionary practice and the lives of the aware proletariat
that we find values such as solidarity, courage, a sense of
responsibility, clearness of thought, tenacity, a federalism or true
democracy of working-class organisations and anarchists which realises
both discipline and a spirit of initiative, respect for revolutionary
democracy â that is to say the possibility for all currents which
sincerely seek the creation of communist society to put forward their
ideas, to criticise and so to perfect revolutionary theory and practice.
The revolutionary fundamental that we have established as an imperative
clearly exempts us from any morality in dealings with the enemy, the
bourgeoisie, which for its own defence would try to make revolutionaries
accept the prohibitions of its morality. It is quite clear that in this
field only the ends can dictate our conduct. This means that once the
ends are recognised and scientifically laid down, the means are simply a
matter of tactics and in consequence can only be valued as means if they
are suited to the ends, to the sought for goal. So this does not mean
any old means and there is no question of justifying means. We must
reject the equivocal formula âthe ends justify the meansâ and say more
simply â âthe means only exist, are only chosen, with a view to the ends
to which they are tied and suited, and do not have to be justified
before the enemy and in terms of the enemyâs moralityâ
In contrast though, these means do inevitably come within the framework
of our morality, since they are appropriate to our ideal â an ideal,
libertarian communism, which implies the Revolution, which in turn
implies that the masses will grasp consciousness guided by the anarchist
Organisation. For example the means imply the solidarity, courage and
sense of responsibilities that we have cited earlier as virtues of our
morality.
There is one point that should make us pause, an aspect of our morality
which people might attach to the meaning of solidarity but which is
really the very epitome of our morality: truth. As much as it is normal
for us to cheat our enemy, the bourgeoisie, who themselves use all kinds
of deceit, so we must tell the truth not just between comrades but to
the masses.
How could we do otherwise when more than anything else, their awareness,
and so their understanding and their judgment, must be increased? Those
who have tried to behave otherwise have only succeeded in humiliating
and disheartening the people, making them all lose all sense of truth,
of analysis and of criticism.
There is nothing proletarian â or revolutionary about immoralist
cynicism. That is the style of decadent elements of the bourgeoisie who
declare the emptiness of the official morality but are incapable of
finding a healthy morality in any existing milieu.
The immoralist is outwardly free in all their movements. But they no
longer know where theyâre going and when they have deceived other people
they deceive themselves.
It is not enough to have a goal you also need a way of getting there.
The working out of a morality within the aware masses and still more
within the libertarian communist movement â comes to strengthen the
structure of revolutionary ideology and to bring an important
contribution to the preparation of a new culture, at the same time as it
totally repudiates the culture of the bourgeoisie.