Anarchism and Marxism
Encyclopedia
Anarchism
and Marxism
are similar political philosophies
which emerged in the nineteenth century. While Anarchism and Marxism are both complex movements riven by internal conflict, as ideological movements their primary attention has been on human liberation achieved through political action. Similarly, both have been intensely interested in abolishing social inequalities present in societies as a result of wage labour
and the Industrial Revolution
. In their most socially significant forms, both movements have been revolutionary
, and have focused on the working class
as the agent of revolution. As working class movements Marxism and anarchism have been sometimes allied and sometimes opposed groups. In particular revolutions there has been significant armed conflict between Marxist and anarchist groups.
Conflicts between anarchist and Marxist movements have emerged in terms of theory, strategy, practice and immediate political goals. Agreements between anarchism and Marxism have tended to focus on ideological convergence based around the concept of the working class as the group that creates real human freedom. The first major ideological conflict between anarchists and Marxists occurred within the First International, a European revolutionary communist political movement. The first major armed conflicts between anarchists and Marxists occurred during the 1917–1923 revolutions in the Russian Empire between urban anarchists, rural Makhnovist anarchists, the Marxist Menshevik Russian Social Democratic Party and the Marxist Bolshevik Russian Social Democratic Party. A major armed conflict occurred during the Spanish Civil War between the Spanish anarchist movement and the Soviet Union-supported central government.
After World War Two, in the West major conflicts between anarchism and Marxism have been generally confined to sectarian left-wing bickering between anarchist groups and Trotskyist or Trotsky-inspired organisations over minor points of tactics or language use. Additionally, since the New Left period, major convergences between minor trends of thought within Marxism and anarchism have occurred, generally in the area of exploring working class self-liberation. After the fall of the Soviet Union, little conflict has occurred between Stalin, post-Stalin or Stalin-inspired Marxists and anarchists, due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union's influence within Marxist circles. Prior to 2000, there was little conflict between pro-property anarchism and Marxism, due to the small size of pro-property anarchist movements and the focus of pro-property anarchist movements on behavioural change within their own perceived movement.
Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber
has distinguished the two philosophies as follows:
(the First International), at its founding, was an alliance of socialist groups, including both anarchists and Marxists. Both sides had a common aim and common enemies. But each was critical of the other, and the inherent conflict between the two groups soon embodied itself in an ongoing argument between Mikhail Bakunin
, representative of anarchist ideas, and Karl Marx
himself. The Marxist branch tended to support the formation of workers' or socialist parties that participated in parliamentary politics in Western liberal democracies to advance their agendas, while anarchists tended to criticize parliamentary politics as not being sufficiently democratic "from the bottom up" and as providing no democratic control over the workplace and the means of production. In 1872, the conflict in the First International climaxed with the expulsion of Bakunin and those who had become known as the "Bakuninists" when they were outvoted by the Marx party at the Hague Congress
.
. The IWW drew upon principles of Anarchism and Marxism.
Many communists left the IWW in the period from 1919 to 1925 due to an ideological split between centralists and decentralists within the IWW, and with encouragement from the Bolshevik government in Moscow to work within the more mainstream American Federation of Labor
unions. The decentralists, or E.P.-ers (for Emergency Program) in the IWW opposed an emphasis on political action, and favored a greater focus on organizing centered within stronger industrial union divisions.
in February 1917
in the beginning stages of the 1917 Russian Revolution. However, a hostile relationship quickly developed between anarchists and Bolsheviks, so that anarchists generally opposed the Bolshevik-initiated transfer of power from the Provisional Government
to the Bolshevik commissars (acting on behalf of Bolshevik-led workers councils—known in Russian as "soviets"), in October 1917
. Even the ensuing civil war pitting the Bolshevik government and Red Army against the Tsarist White Armies did not reconcile anarchists and Bolsheviks.
The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine
, led by anarchists
, fought counter-revolutionary forces in a tenuous alliance with the Red Army. These Ukrainian anarchists were highly critical of other anarchists in the Russian Revolution who lacked their discipline. The RIAU was later suppressed by Red Army over the issue of the integration of the RIAU into the Red Army.
Russian anarchists were the first organized victims of the CHEKA in April and May 1918. They were arguing for free soviets, freedom of expression and association and the establishment of free communes on the basis of voluntary association. As a result of their interpretation of the Bolshevik hegemony over the revolution, some urban anarchists engaged in protest and civil disobedience. Most Russian anarchists were imprisoned and their press silenced.
At the end of the civil war, sailors at Kronstadt
influenced by anarchists and dissident Marxists mutinied, demanding more political liberties while defending socialism and workers' democracy, and were surrounded, attacked, and suffered reprisal by mass execution and political imprisonment at the hands of the Bolshevik Red Army
and political police.
of 1936–1939, although the anarchists and Marxists both fought in a united front against the fascist movement of General Francisco Franco
, the revolutionary Marxists of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification
(POUM), the anarcho-syndicalists of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
(CNT), and the anarchists of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica
(FAI) faced repression and attacks from the Communist party
.
in the 19th century, syndicalism
, Jan Wacław Machajski
, De Leonism
, council communism
, and Bordigism
in the first half of the 20th century, and the Situationist International and Autonomist Marxism in the second half of the 20th century. The modern Zapatista Army of National Liberation
movement in Chiapas
, Mexico
also incorporates both anarchist and Marxist ideas, along with indigenous Mayan
political thought.
and Autonomism
.
in his 1918 essay "Politics as a Vocation
". Marxists, and some anarchists, dispute this definition. Marxism has a unique definition of the state: that the state is an organ of one class's repression of all other classes. To Marxists, any state is intrinsically a dictatorship
by one class over all others. Therefore, within Marxist theory, should the differentiation between classes disappear, so too will the state.
However, there is some convergence of views. Anarchists believe that any state—be it a worker's state or a bourgeois state—will inevitably be created and ruled by a political and economic elite, therefore becoming an organ of class domination. Conversely, Marxists believe that successful class repression almost always requires a superior capacity for violence, and that all societies prior to socialism are ruled by a minority class, so that in Marxist theory any non-socialist state will possess the properties attributed to all states by anarchists and others.
Disputes arise between anarchists and those Marxists who believe that a state is required for the repression of classes other than the working class. In example, Bakunin wrote in his work "Anarchism and the State":
Bakunin believed that Marx's desire to abolish the state and create, in the last analysis, an anarchist system via state power is irrational. Commenting on that he added that "anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, [for Marxists] in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved."
leads directly into the practical question of what form the transition to the stateless society
both anarchists and Marxists view as their end goal will take.
Marxists believe that a successful transition to a stateless society communism
will require the repression of capitalists in order for them not to re-establish their control. That requires, according to Marxists, the existence of a state in some form run by workers (there is a dispute on whether the dictatorship of the proletariat
is a state as we conceive it today). This formulation can be gross, envisaging the dictatorship of the proletariat as a political dictatorship; or, it can be nuanced, seeing the dictatorship of the proletariat as an internally democratic amongst workers. The kind of workers' state envisaged varies between the bureaucratic apparatus and internally undemocratic state departments and armed forces of capitalist states through to internally democratic and anti-bureaucratic structures such as workers councils.
Anarchists and some libertarian socialists reject the Marxist view that a transitional phase will be needed and accuse Marxism of being too authoritarian, though they have been much less critical of Libertarian varieties of Marxism
than scientific communism, Leninism
and Stalinism
. Anarchists contend that the "workers' state" advocated by Marxists is a logical impossibility since, as soon as a group -be it the workers- begins to govern by means of a state apparatus, they gain power and become oppressors. It is important to note however that this argument is a misrepresentation in that it uses the Anarchist definition of the state and not that of the Marxists, ascribing to the "workers state", characteristics which the Marxists do not necessarily imply by the word "state".
The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat has been criticized by most anarchists both on a theoretical and historical basis. Mainly, it is argued that it is not a class that takes power but at best a minority of that class, a party in the Leninist sense, and so is a dictatorship over the proletariat. They point to the measures taken by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin during the Russian Revolution since as early as 1917 as evidence of this. Anarchists support their arguments by pointing to the undemocratic nature of the Soviet Union and other self-identified "Marxist" states.
Some Marxists criticise the immediatist anarchist position by arguing that any revolutionary institution using armed force is acting as a state, regardless of its name or self-conception. Other Marxists argue for the necessity of a strong and cohesive repressive institution during revolutions, and support this position by pointing to the defeat of anarchist-led revolutions such as that during the Spanish Civil War
, or other revolutions which were defeated.
Therefore, both Marxists and anarchists wish to abolish the existing state. Immediately after abolishing the existing state, Marxists seek to replace it with a workers' state, i.e. the "dictatorship of the proletariat", or the workers organized as the ruling class. From this point, as expressed by Frederick Engels, the worker's state will begin to wither away, finally ceasing to exist when class antagonisms have been defeated. On the other hand, anarchists feel the re-creation of any sort of state will place power in the hand of a tiny minority, that States with their repressive capacities and massive bureaucracies tend to be self-perpetuating and do not "wither away", and that in practice establishing a new state is thus counter-revolutionary because in order to eventually eliminate it a second revolution will be required. Anarchists point to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demands by grassroots movements throughout the Soviet block to abolish the dictatorship but keep socialism as a failed attempt to make such a second revolution. The failure of such movements as they were co-opted by former Soviet leaders (nomenklatura
) who instead kept the dictatorship and abolished socialism, is seen as evidence that such a long and circuitous route from capitalism to freedom is inefficient and unlikely to actually result in freedom. Marxists respond to this saying that the organized, centralized repression of the capitalist class will be absolutely necessary, and that the proletariat can only accomplish this by the use of the state.
The Marxist position blends into anarchism at one end of the spectrum, mostly due to the wide variety of Marxist and Anarchist movements. The anarchists disagree among themselves if a system of democratic workers' councils constitutes a state or not, while on the other hand Marxists disagree widely among themselves over the form and the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat
.
, which also divides anarchists and Marxists. Most Marxists see political parties as useful or even necessary tools for seizing state power, since they view a centrally coordinated effort as necessary to successfully defeat the capitalist class and state and establish a body capable of maintaining power. However, Marxists disagree on whether a revolutionary party ought to participate in bourgeois elections, what role it should have after a revolution, and how it should be organized.
Anarchists generally refuse to participate in governments, and so do not form parliamentary political parties. However, the organisations formed by anarchists have either been political federations, such as the FAI
, or often resemble the non-parliamentary roles of a political party by having a shared membership, set of principles, platform for action and media such as newspapers. Many of these organisations have been characterised by attempts at direct democracy, federalism or participatory democracy. When anarchist organisations have been pushed by historical circumstances, such as the controversy over the CNT-FAI's participation in the Spanish Popular Front, some anarchist organisations have acted as representative or commanding organisations. Marxists often point to the irony of this situation, and use it to argue in favour of a more honest approach to the relationship between party, or party like organisation, and the rest of the working class.
, actions they perceive as inspirational to the working class. Marxists and many anarchists believe that violent revolution is necessary or inevitable. Such anarchists often believe the anarchist revolution will be a spontaneous, unorganized uprising, while Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists believe that the bourgeoisie will inevitably use violence against the organized workers' movement.
On the other hand, some anarchists promote self-defense rather than large-scale anti-state violence. Some promote non-violent protests, marches, and general strikes, only condoning violence in self-defense against aggressive actions taken by the state to prevent non-violent anarchist revolutions. Some view force as inherently authoritarian. Indeed, this was an argument made by Karl Marx against the logic of anarchism as promoted by Mikhail Bakunin. Many social
, individualist
and mutualist
anarchists however sometimes prefer reformist approaches rather than open violence and would only advocate such under extreme circumstances.
class analyses are based on the idea that society is divided into "classes", which are created based on the control each class has upon the means of production and hence each class having differing interests. The two differ, however, in where they draw the lines between these groups. Anarcho-primitivists and post-left anarchists
reject left wing politics in general (and theoretically by extension Marxist class analysis) as they typically see left wing politics as corrupt and in the former case see civilization as unreformable.
For Marxists, the two most relevant classes are the "bourgeoisie
", those who own the means of production
, and the "proletariat
", more explicitly, the wage laborers. Marx believed that the industrial workers -and only them- would organize together, abolish the state, take control over the means of production, collectivize them, and create a classless society
administered by and for workers. He believed that only the workers have the motive and power to do that. For this reason, he dismissed peasants,the "petty-bourgeois", and the "lumpen-proletariat"—the unemployed "underclass"—as incapable of creating revolution.
The anarchist class analysis predates Marxism and contradicts it. Anarchists argue that it is not the whole bourgeoisie who has control over the means of production and the state, but only a minority of them, which is part of the ruling class, but has its own concerns. Also, traditionally anarchists have rejected Marx's dismissal of the lumpen proletariat and the peasantry as revolutionary and argued that a revolution, in order to be successful, needs the support of the peasants. Classical Anarchists believed that this is only possible through the redistribution of land. That is, they explicitly reject imposing state property of the land, although voluntary collectivization is seen as more efficient and thus supported (indeed, during the Spanish revolution anarchists impulsed hundreds of collectivizations but only a tiny minority had all the land in the area, small peasants were allowed to cultivate their own land without hired labour).
Some modern anarchists (particularly pareconists) argue that there are three "classes", which have relevance to social change—not two. The first is the labor class (which includes everyone whose labor is involved in producing and distributing goods as well as much of the so-called "service" industry). This includes farmers, peasants, industrial workers, small landowners, small business owners who labor with their employees and blue, pink and white-collar workers. The second is the coordinator class which includes everyone whose labor is primarily concerned with "coordinating" and managing the labor of others primarily on behalf of the bourgeoisie, administrating organizations, setting the intellectual status quo or managing the State apparatus. The anarchist definition of the "coordinator class" includes people such as bureaucrats, technocrats, managers, administrators, middle-class intellectuals (such as economists, political and social scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, etc.), physical scientists, judges, lawyers, military officials, political party organizers and leaders, etc. And finally the elite owning class or "capital class" which derives its income from its control of wealth, land, property and resources. Marxists vigorously debate the exact composition of the middle class under capitalism. Some also describe a "co-ordinating class" which implements capitalism on behalf of the capitalists, composed of the petit bourgeoisie, professional
s and managers. Others dispute this, freely using the term "middle class" to refer to affluent white-collar workers as described above (even though, in Marxist terms, they are part of the proletariat
—the working class). Still others (for example, Council communists
) allege, like anarchists, that there is a class comprising intellectuals, technocrats
and managers which seeks power in its own right. This last group of communists allege that such technocratic middle classes seized power and government for themselves in Soviet-style societies
.
Anarchists contend that Marxism fails, and will always fail, because it creates a dictatorship of the coordinating technocratic/managerial class and that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a logical impossibility. Mikhail Bakunin
foreshadowed this argument when he wrote:
Some believe that Marxism fails because its theoretical "socialist mode of production" involves centralizing and empowering the State apparatus which empowers people from the coordinator class to seize control of the State and means of production to manage the labor class, effectively acting as a surrogate capital class. However, this is less of a problem for libertarian Marxists who believe that such as State apparatus should operate on working class-led participatory democracy or even as a consociational state.
Key differences thus include the fact that Anarchists do not differentiate between peasants, lumpen, and proletarians and instead define all people who work for the profit of others as members of the working class, regardless of occupation; and that anarchists do differentiate between the economic and political elites who set policy and the business and government functionaries that carry those policies out whereas Marxists lump the two together.
Further, some Anarchists argue that Marxism fails because it springs from the minds of middle class intellectuals, while arguing that anarchism springs spontaneously from the self-activity and self-organization of the labor class. They point to the fact that the major schools of Marxism are often named after the intellectuals who formed the movements through high analytical and philosophical praxis theorization. While schools of Anarchism tend to emerge from organizational principles or forms of practice and are rarely (if ever) named after or centered around an individual intellectual. Anarchists distinguish themselves by what they do, and how they organize themselves where as Marxists tend to distinguish themselves by their strategic approach and their philosophical or intellectual methodology. Marxists, however, contend that their ideas are not new ideologies which sprang from intellectuals but are ideas which form from the class contradictions of each economic and social mode of history. They argue that Marxian socialism in particular arose from the minds of the working class due to the class contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. Some Marxists even argue that anarchism springs from the ideas of proletarians (or even petty bourgeoisie) who have been marginalized by capitalism as an unorganized and unrefined reactionary struggle against the forces of capitalism.
, ethnic minorities, and cultural minorities (such as homosexuals). Classical Marxism
generally dismissed such movements since, for Marxists, class struggle had to take precedence over all other forms of struggle. They argued that only the class struggle could allow the working class to seize power via seizing the state. Once state power had been seized, issues like racism or sexism, could be much more easily to deal with. Since the 1970s, however, most Marxist organizations explicitly support such liberation movements, not only because they are worthy in and of themselves, but also on the grounds that they are seen as necessary for a working-class revolution. Many Marxists believe that attempts by oppressed people to liberate themselves will continue to fail to achieve their full aims until class society is done away with, because under capitalism
and other class societies, social power rests at the point of production.
Anarchists, other political movements and a lot of theorists criticize classical Marxism for giving class priority and argue that this way of explaining social movements denigrates other oppressions, which operate with their own independent dynamics. Most Anarchists see liberation movements by oppressed people as fundamentally legitimate, be they "peasants", "proletarians", or bourgeoisie, without needing to fit these movements into a predetermined schema for revolution
. However, many anarchists believe that single issue struggles are extremely limited and not powerful enough to change in depth societal conditions. Nevertheless, they still support and participate in them since they still think of them as useful.
Marxists tend to view people as sharing a certain class consciousness
based on their station in capitalist society. They believe that people share a collective socio-economic mindset and that freedom comes from liberating the class of its class status shackles, thus eventually empowering the individual. Anarchists on the other hand tend to view people as social individuals who share a common condition in capitalist society, but don't necessarily share a uniform class consciousness.
Despite the hostility of Marxism to organized religion, there have been attempts to fuse the two, Liberation theology
being the most obvious example. Some Priests associated with Liberation Theology have even joined and fought with armed guerrillas, Camilo Torres
, for instance, joined and fought with the ELN (National Liberation Army
) in Colombia and died in combat. Although the Vatican
has actively condemned liberation theology, liberation theology remains influential in parts of Latin America, most notably with the Landless Workers' Movement
of Brazil.
Anarchists advocate resistance to oppressive and authoritarian institutions, including religious ones; and in extreme cases this may include violent resistance. During the Spanish Civil War
, for instance, the Catholic Church was one of the biggest landowners and allied itself with the Falangist Fascist movement led by Francisco Franco
. Opposition to Catholic institutions and the collectivization of church lands by peasants formed a major part of the anarchist revolution that opposed Franco in Barcelona. In the Basque Country
, however, most priests defied the church and opposed Fascism and urged their congregations to do likewise, and so on the ground there was little in the way of physical conflict between anarchists and Catholics over religion.
In contrast to Marxism, anarchism has historically been more accepting of personal spirituality and egalitarian religions. Anarchism has also historically gained much more support amongst religious communities and at various times and places explicitly anarchist forms of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions have claimed tens of thousands of members. Some anarchists envision future society as being free of religion while others envision a future society in which egalitarian religions and spirituality being a private matter equally tolerated with non-religious tendencies in a neutral, secular society. A smaller number envision spirituality or egalitarian religions playing a prominent role in society, most recently Neopaganism, with its focus on the sanctity of nature and equality, along with its often decentralized nature, has led to a number of Neopagan inspired anarchists. One of the most prominent is Starhawk
, who writes extensively about both spirituality and activism.
and national minorities. The classical Anarchist position was that the coming revolution would wipe away all distinctions of nationality, since nationality is socially constructed, that the proletariat has no "nation", and that the natural form for socialism was internationalism
. This remained the established position of the entire anti-capitalist left up until the early 1900s and still holds considerable sway in both anarchist and Marxist circles. Marxists acknowledge boundaries and development of the nation state.
During the build-up to the Russian revolution, however, Lenin and the Bolsheviks found it expedient to promise independence to the various indigenous non-Russian national minorities, notably the Ukrainians
and the Poles
, in return for their support against the Czarist empire. Whilst some Bolsheviks continued to support this position, the dominant Bolshevik faction grouped around Lenin in Moscow first drove the National Communists
underground and the liquidating them in 1928. Subsequently all nationalist movements throughout the USSR were brutally crushed by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and all their successors until the collapse of the USSR as a political unit. In the run-up to World War II Russia's foreign policy centered around the idea of National Bolshevism
, through which the Bolshevik political elite in Russia sought to instigate and support communist-nationalist revolutions around the world, most notably in Hungary and Germany, and then absorb the newly independent areas into a Soviet commonwealth—a goal that was achieved after World War II with the Warsaw Pact
. Elements of this persisted in Soviet foreign policy throughout the cold war and helped motivate support of nationalist and anti-imperialist movements throughout the third world. Aid by Russia to the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese revolution was driven by the same motivation, but once in power Mao refused to allow the USSR to control Chinese policy, leading to a break with Stalin that culminated in a brief war between the two powers. The same process would later play out in the relationship between Communist rulers in China and Vietnam.
During the Chinese revolution a parallel process occurred as Mao Zedong
and the Chinese Communist Party first promised independence and self-determination to all of China's many stateless nations, and then not only refused to deliver once the CCP's grip on power was solidified but actually invaded and annexed Tibet
, which he regarded as a renegade province. Every successive Communist government throughout the world has followed this same pattern of first promising indigenous national minorities self-determination in order to gain their support and then actively opposing that self-determination once in power. In a nutshell, the general policy of Marxist governments from Lenin on has been to support revolution nationalism and the rights of indigenous groups in theory and to oppose it in practice. Most recently, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua
were accused of carrying out campaigns of ethnic cleansing
against indigenous peoples in order to seize their land.
Ward Churchill
has gone so far as to argue in his essay on Marxism and Indigenism that Marxism is inherently imperialist and racist in effect, if not in intent, because it is based on the idea of historical progress and industrialization as inevitable, and sees industrial proletarian-based societies as more "advanced" than other societies (particularly indigenous societies). Other scholars argue that the conflict has to do with the demands of running a State structure and argue that if the Bolsheviks had come to power in Poland (for example) instead of Russia they would have had to become Polish nationalists and would have bitterly opposed Russian attempts to dominate Poland. Seizing the Russian State, however, meant that they had to defend the interests of that State; and the rights of stateless nations thus became anathema.
The position of Anarchism is somewhat the reverse. Most Anarchists, both historically and up to the present day, see borders and national divisions as detrimental and envision a world in which distinctions of race and ethnicity fade and disappear over time as the ideal. In practice, however, Anarchism is based on small-scale systems of self-determination, local self-governance, and mutual aid that fulfill the desire of national minorities for self-determination on a defacto basis; and has thus been historically compatible with anti-state forms of nationalism
. The most notable collaboration, of course, being the movements for self-rule by the Catalans
and Basques
in Spain which found expression under the banner of the anarchist CNT
during the Spanish Civil War
. More recently there has been an attempt at an explicit fusion of Anarchism and native-American political traditions manifested in the modern Indigenist movement. Anti-State nationalist organizations that explicitly describe their politics as Anarchist currently exist in Ireland and Brittany
. Many members of the modern American Indian Movement
also consider themselves Anarchists.
." The central idea of historical materialism is the idea that people live in a determined material world, and act in order to produce changes upon this predetermined world, without being able to fundamentally change it. In economic terms, the relations of production
are the driving force of history. Underlying these processes, as a dialectical background notion, is the idea that contradictions and opposed social groups are the ones that form and drive social progress.
Marx formulated the concept of historical materialism from a critique of Hegel's Idealism and dialectics. Marx only applied historical materialism to human history; however, Marxists claim that his methodology can be applied to all phenomena and they usually describe it as dialectical materialism
. Anarchist philosopher Murray Bookchin
developed dialectical naturalism
out of a combination of Marxist and Hegelian dialectics, and Kropotkin's biological outlook.
Classical Anarchists saw value in historical materialism as a tool for social analysis. Contemporary anarchists use a wide variety of tools of social analysis, historical materialism included. The Irish Workers Solidarity Movement
, for instance, makes agreeing with the historical materialist method's value a central point of unity. Many anarchists, however, dismiss dialectical materialism as a pseudo-science based on untestable and unfalsifiable universal claims. Anarchists were among the first to criticise the dialectical materialist trend as pseudo-science and generally criticised either the Marxist methodologies as such, or the applications of them, on the basis that both historical and dialectical materialism dehumanise people as the agents of history. Within Marxism these criticisms are mirrored by the criticisms of socialist humanists, Western Marxists, Autonomist Marxists and other similar thinkers.
in the late 19th and early 20th century, have believed this. However, the degree to which the revolution must be made by conscious forces has always been a matter of dispute among Marxists, with many arguing that Marx' famous statement that "I am not a Marxist" was a rejection of determinism, and the split was sharpened by the First World War, when the social democratic parties of the Second International supported their respective nations' war efforts. Many Marxist opponents of the war, such as Rosa Luxemburg
, blamed the Second International's "betrayal" partly on its doctrine of the inevitability of socialism, which justified its attempt to reform existing capitalist states. Luxemburg put the alternatives for the future, instead, as "socialism or barbarism."
Since an influential segment of anarchists reject either dialectical materialism
or historical materialism
or both, these anarchists usually do not claim that revolution and the reorganization of society are inevitable, only that they are desirable. Some anarchists, while rejecting dialetical or historical materialism claim other bases for the inevitability of revolution, such as the natural yearning of consciousness for freedom; these anarchists find their mirror within Marxist intellectual movements in individuals such as Herbert Marcuse
.
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
and Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
are similar political philosophies
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
which emerged in the nineteenth century. While Anarchism and Marxism are both complex movements riven by internal conflict, as ideological movements their primary attention has been on human liberation achieved through political action. Similarly, both have been intensely interested in abolishing social inequalities present in societies as a result of wage labour
Wage labour
Wage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer, where the worker sells their labour under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages are market determined...
and the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. In their most socially significant forms, both movements have been revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
, and have focused on the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
as the agent of revolution. As working class movements Marxism and anarchism have been sometimes allied and sometimes opposed groups. In particular revolutions there has been significant armed conflict between Marxist and anarchist groups.
Conflicts between anarchist and Marxist movements have emerged in terms of theory, strategy, practice and immediate political goals. Agreements between anarchism and Marxism have tended to focus on ideological convergence based around the concept of the working class as the group that creates real human freedom. The first major ideological conflict between anarchists and Marxists occurred within the First International, a European revolutionary communist political movement. The first major armed conflicts between anarchists and Marxists occurred during the 1917–1923 revolutions in the Russian Empire between urban anarchists, rural Makhnovist anarchists, the Marxist Menshevik Russian Social Democratic Party and the Marxist Bolshevik Russian Social Democratic Party. A major armed conflict occurred during the Spanish Civil War between the Spanish anarchist movement and the Soviet Union-supported central government.
After World War Two, in the West major conflicts between anarchism and Marxism have been generally confined to sectarian left-wing bickering between anarchist groups and Trotskyist or Trotsky-inspired organisations over minor points of tactics or language use. Additionally, since the New Left period, major convergences between minor trends of thought within Marxism and anarchism have occurred, generally in the area of exploring working class self-liberation. After the fall of the Soviet Union, little conflict has occurred between Stalin, post-Stalin or Stalin-inspired Marxists and anarchists, due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union's influence within Marxist circles. Prior to 2000, there was little conflict between pro-property anarchism and Marxism, due to the small size of pro-property anarchist movements and the focus of pro-property anarchist movements on behavioural change within their own perceived movement.
Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber is an American anthropologist and anarchist who currently holds the position of Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his...
has distinguished the two philosophies as follows:
International Workingmen's Association
The International Workingmen's AssociationInternational Workingmen's Association
The International Workingmen's Association , sometimes called the First International, was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class...
(the First International), at its founding, was an alliance of socialist groups, including both anarchists and Marxists. Both sides had a common aim and common enemies. But each was critical of the other, and the inherent conflict between the two groups soon embodied itself in an ongoing argument between Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
, representative of anarchist ideas, and Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
himself. The Marxist branch tended to support the formation of workers' or socialist parties that participated in parliamentary politics in Western liberal democracies to advance their agendas, while anarchists tended to criticize parliamentary politics as not being sufficiently democratic "from the bottom up" and as providing no democratic control over the workplace and the means of production. In 1872, the conflict in the First International climaxed with the expulsion of Bakunin and those who had become known as the "Bakuninists" when they were outvoted by the Marx party at the Hague Congress
Hague Congress (1872)
The Hague Congress was the Fifth congress of the International Workingmen's Association held in in The Hague, Holland, which anarchists consider as null and void....
.
Industrial Workers of the World
In the late 19th and early 20th century, many Marxists and anarchists joined syndicalist movements for militant revolutionary labor unions, such as the Industrial Workers of the WorldIndustrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
. The IWW drew upon principles of Anarchism and Marxism.
Many communists left the IWW in the period from 1919 to 1925 due to an ideological split between centralists and decentralists within the IWW, and with encouragement from the Bolshevik government in Moscow to work within the more mainstream American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
unions. The decentralists, or E.P.-ers (for Emergency Program) in the IWW opposed an emphasis on political action, and favored a greater focus on organizing centered within stronger industrial union divisions.
Russian Revolution
Both anarchists and Marxists participated in the overthrow of the TsarTsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
in February 1917
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
in the beginning stages of the 1917 Russian Revolution. However, a hostile relationship quickly developed between anarchists and Bolsheviks, so that anarchists generally opposed the Bolshevik-initiated transfer of power from the Provisional Government
Provisional government
A provisional government is an emergency or interim government set up when a political void has been created by the collapse of a very large government. The early provisional governments were created to prepare for the return of royal rule...
to the Bolshevik commissars (acting on behalf of Bolshevik-led workers councils—known in Russian as "soviets"), in October 1917
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
. Even the ensuing civil war pitting the Bolshevik government and Red Army against the Tsarist White Armies did not reconcile anarchists and Bolsheviks.
The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine
Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine
The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine , popularly called Makhnovshchina, less correctly Makhnovchina, and also known as the Black Army, was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian and Crimean peasants and workers under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno during the...
, led by anarchists
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno or simply Daddy Makhno was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War....
, fought counter-revolutionary forces in a tenuous alliance with the Red Army. These Ukrainian anarchists were highly critical of other anarchists in the Russian Revolution who lacked their discipline. The RIAU was later suppressed by Red Army over the issue of the integration of the RIAU into the Red Army.
Russian anarchists were the first organized victims of the CHEKA in April and May 1918. They were arguing for free soviets, freedom of expression and association and the establishment of free communes on the basis of voluntary association. As a result of their interpretation of the Bolshevik hegemony over the revolution, some urban anarchists engaged in protest and civil disobedience. Most Russian anarchists were imprisoned and their press silenced.
At the end of the civil war, sailors at Kronstadt
Kronstadt rebellion
The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
influenced by anarchists and dissident Marxists mutinied, demanding more political liberties while defending socialism and workers' democracy, and were surrounded, attacked, and suffered reprisal by mass execution and political imprisonment at the hands of the Bolshevik Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
and political police.
Spanish Civil War
During the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
of 1936–1939, although the anarchists and Marxists both fought in a united front against the fascist movement of General Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
, the revolutionary Marxists of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification
Workers' Party of Marxist Unification
The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification was a Spanish communist political party formed during the Second Republic and mainly active around the Spanish Civil War...
(POUM), the anarcho-syndicalists of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...
(CNT), and the anarchists of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica
Federación Anarquista Ibérica
The Federación Anarquista Ibérica is a Spanish organization of anarchist militants active within affinity groups inside the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo trade union. It is often abbreviated as CNT-FAI because of the close relationship between the two organizations...
(FAI) faced repression and attacks from the Communist party
Communist Party of Spain
The Communist Party of Spain is the third largest national political party in Spain. It is the largest member organization of the United Left electoral coalition and has influence in the largest trade union in Spain, Workers' Commissions ....
.
Attempted theoretical syntheses
A number of political ideologies and movements have attempted some degree of synthesis of the Marxist and anarchist traditions with the aim of a liberated workers' society. These include the followers of Joseph DietzgenJoseph Dietzgen
Joseph Dietzgen was a German socialist philosopher, Marxist and journalist. Joseph was born in Blankenberg in the Rhine Province of Prussia. He was the first of five children of father Johann Gottfried Anno Dietzgen and mother Anna Margaretha Lückerath . He was, like his father, a tanner by...
in the 19th century, syndicalism
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
, Jan Wacław Machajski
Jan Wacław Machajski
Jan Wacław Machajski , pseudonym A. Wolski , was a Polish anarchist whose methodology was thoroughly Marxist.-Life:...
, De Leonism
De Leonism
De Leonism, occasionally known as Marxism-Deleonism, is a form of syndicalist Marxism developed by Daniel De Leon. De Leon was an early leader of the first United States socialist political party, the Socialist Labor Party of America....
, council communism
Council communism
Council communism is a current of libertarian Marxism that emerged out of the November Revolution in the 1920s, characterized by its opposition to state capitalism/state socialism as well as its advocacy of workers' councils as the basis for workers' democracy.Originally affiliated with the...
, and Bordigism
Amadeo Bordiga
Amadeo Bordiga was an Italian Marxist, a contributor to Communist theory, the founder of the Communist Party of Italy, a leader of the Communist International and, after World War II, leading figure of the International Communist Party.- Early life :Bordiga was born at Resina, in the province of...
in the first half of the 20th century, and the Situationist International and Autonomist Marxism in the second half of the 20th century. The modern Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Zapatista Army of National Liberation
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico....
movement in Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
also incorporates both anarchist and Marxist ideas, along with indigenous Mayan
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
political thought.
Alliances and joint movements
There have been overlaps between Anarchism and Marxism historically, including hybrid movements of anarchism and anti-authoritarian Marxism such as libertarian MarxismLibertarian Marxism
Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives, such as Stalinism, Maoism, and...
and Autonomism
Autonomism
Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist communism...
.
Arguments surrounding the issue of the state
Modern political scientists generally define the "state" as a centralized, hierarchical, governing institution which maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, in keeping with the definition originally proposed by the German sociologist Max WeberMax Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
in his 1918 essay "Politics as a Vocation
Politics as a Vocation
Politics as a Vocation is an essay by German economist and sociologist Max Weber. It originated in a lecture he gave to the Free Students Union of Munich University, in January 1919, during the German Revolution....
". Marxists, and some anarchists, dispute this definition. Marxism has a unique definition of the state: that the state is an organ of one class's repression of all other classes. To Marxists, any state is intrinsically a dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
by one class over all others. Therefore, within Marxist theory, should the differentiation between classes disappear, so too will the state.
However, there is some convergence of views. Anarchists believe that any state—be it a worker's state or a bourgeois state—will inevitably be created and ruled by a political and economic elite, therefore becoming an organ of class domination. Conversely, Marxists believe that successful class repression almost always requires a superior capacity for violence, and that all societies prior to socialism are ruled by a minority class, so that in Marxist theory any non-socialist state will possess the properties attributed to all states by anarchists and others.
Disputes arise between anarchists and those Marxists who believe that a state is required for the repression of classes other than the working class. In example, Bakunin wrote in his work "Anarchism and the State":
Bakunin believed that Marx's desire to abolish the state and create, in the last analysis, an anarchist system via state power is irrational. Commenting on that he added that "anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, [for Marxists] in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved."
The process of transition
The theory of the stateState (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
leads directly into the practical question of what form the transition to the stateless society
Stateless society
A stateless society is a society that is not governed by a state. In stateless societies, there is little concentration of authority; most positions of authority that do exist are very limited in power and are generally not permanently held positions; and social bodies that resolve disputes through...
both anarchists and Marxists view as their end goal will take.
Marxists believe that a successful transition to a stateless society communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
will require the repression of capitalists in order for them not to re-establish their control. That requires, according to Marxists, the existence of a state in some form run by workers (there is a dispute on whether the dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
is a state as we conceive it today). This formulation can be gross, envisaging the dictatorship of the proletariat as a political dictatorship; or, it can be nuanced, seeing the dictatorship of the proletariat as an internally democratic amongst workers. The kind of workers' state envisaged varies between the bureaucratic apparatus and internally undemocratic state departments and armed forces of capitalist states through to internally democratic and anti-bureaucratic structures such as workers councils.
Anarchists and some libertarian socialists reject the Marxist view that a transitional phase will be needed and accuse Marxism of being too authoritarian, though they have been much less critical of Libertarian varieties of Marxism
Libertarian Marxism
Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives, such as Stalinism, Maoism, and...
than scientific communism, Leninism
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
and Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
. Anarchists contend that the "workers' state" advocated by Marxists is a logical impossibility since, as soon as a group -be it the workers- begins to govern by means of a state apparatus, they gain power and become oppressors. It is important to note however that this argument is a misrepresentation in that it uses the Anarchist definition of the state and not that of the Marxists, ascribing to the "workers state", characteristics which the Marxists do not necessarily imply by the word "state".
The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat has been criticized by most anarchists both on a theoretical and historical basis. Mainly, it is argued that it is not a class that takes power but at best a minority of that class, a party in the Leninist sense, and so is a dictatorship over the proletariat. They point to the measures taken by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin during the Russian Revolution since as early as 1917 as evidence of this. Anarchists support their arguments by pointing to the undemocratic nature of the Soviet Union and other self-identified "Marxist" states.
Some Marxists criticise the immediatist anarchist position by arguing that any revolutionary institution using armed force is acting as a state, regardless of its name or self-conception. Other Marxists argue for the necessity of a strong and cohesive repressive institution during revolutions, and support this position by pointing to the defeat of anarchist-led revolutions such as that during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, or other revolutions which were defeated.
Therefore, both Marxists and anarchists wish to abolish the existing state. Immediately after abolishing the existing state, Marxists seek to replace it with a workers' state, i.e. the "dictatorship of the proletariat", or the workers organized as the ruling class. From this point, as expressed by Frederick Engels, the worker's state will begin to wither away, finally ceasing to exist when class antagonisms have been defeated. On the other hand, anarchists feel the re-creation of any sort of state will place power in the hand of a tiny minority, that States with their repressive capacities and massive bureaucracies tend to be self-perpetuating and do not "wither away", and that in practice establishing a new state is thus counter-revolutionary because in order to eventually eliminate it a second revolution will be required. Anarchists point to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demands by grassroots movements throughout the Soviet block to abolish the dictatorship but keep socialism as a failed attempt to make such a second revolution. The failure of such movements as they were co-opted by former Soviet leaders (nomenklatura
Nomenklatura
The nomenklatura were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the...
) who instead kept the dictatorship and abolished socialism, is seen as evidence that such a long and circuitous route from capitalism to freedom is inefficient and unlikely to actually result in freedom. Marxists respond to this saying that the organized, centralized repression of the capitalist class will be absolutely necessary, and that the proletariat can only accomplish this by the use of the state.
The Marxist position blends into anarchism at one end of the spectrum, mostly due to the wide variety of Marxist and Anarchist movements. The anarchists disagree among themselves if a system of democratic workers' councils constitutes a state or not, while on the other hand Marxists disagree widely among themselves over the form and the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
.
Political parties
The issue of seizing state power brings up the issue of political partiesPolitical party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
, which also divides anarchists and Marxists. Most Marxists see political parties as useful or even necessary tools for seizing state power, since they view a centrally coordinated effort as necessary to successfully defeat the capitalist class and state and establish a body capable of maintaining power. However, Marxists disagree on whether a revolutionary party ought to participate in bourgeois elections, what role it should have after a revolution, and how it should be organized.
Anarchists generally refuse to participate in governments, and so do not form parliamentary political parties. However, the organisations formed by anarchists have either been political federations, such as the FAI
Federación Anarquista Ibérica
The Federación Anarquista Ibérica is a Spanish organization of anarchist militants active within affinity groups inside the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo trade union. It is often abbreviated as CNT-FAI because of the close relationship between the two organizations...
, or often resemble the non-parliamentary roles of a political party by having a shared membership, set of principles, platform for action and media such as newspapers. Many of these organisations have been characterised by attempts at direct democracy, federalism or participatory democracy. When anarchist organisations have been pushed by historical circumstances, such as the controversy over the CNT-FAI's participation in the Spanish Popular Front, some anarchist organisations have acted as representative or commanding organisations. Marxists often point to the irony of this situation, and use it to argue in favour of a more honest approach to the relationship between party, or party like organisation, and the rest of the working class.
Violence and revolution
Another practical question closely related to the theory of the state is whether and how much violence is acceptable in order to achieve a successful revolution. Some anarchist trends rely more on propaganda of the deedPropaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed is a concept that refers to specific political actions meant to be exemplary to others...
, actions they perceive as inspirational to the working class. Marxists and many anarchists believe that violent revolution is necessary or inevitable. Such anarchists often believe the anarchist revolution will be a spontaneous, unorganized uprising, while Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists believe that the bourgeoisie will inevitably use violence against the organized workers' movement.
On the other hand, some anarchists promote self-defense rather than large-scale anti-state violence. Some promote non-violent protests, marches, and general strikes, only condoning violence in self-defense against aggressive actions taken by the state to prevent non-violent anarchist revolutions. Some view force as inherently authoritarian. Indeed, this was an argument made by Karl Marx against the logic of anarchism as promoted by Mikhail Bakunin. Many social
Social anarchism
Social anarchism is a term originally used in 1971 by Giovanni Baldelli as the title of his book where he discusses the organization of an ethical society from an anarchist point of view...
, individualist
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
and mutualist
Mutualism (economic theory)
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought that originates in the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who envisioned a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market...
anarchists however sometimes prefer reformist approaches rather than open violence and would only advocate such under extreme circumstances.
Arguments surrounding the issue of class
Both Marxist and socialist anarchistSocial anarchism
Social anarchism is a term originally used in 1971 by Giovanni Baldelli as the title of his book where he discusses the organization of an ethical society from an anarchist point of view...
class analyses are based on the idea that society is divided into "classes", which are created based on the control each class has upon the means of production and hence each class having differing interests. The two differ, however, in where they draw the lines between these groups. Anarcho-primitivists and post-left anarchists
Post-left anarchy
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional leftism. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology in general also presenting a critique of organizations and morality...
reject left wing politics in general (and theoretically by extension Marxist class analysis) as they typically see left wing politics as corrupt and in the former case see civilization as unreformable.
For Marxists, the two most relevant classes are the "bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
", those who own the means of production
Means of production
Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...
, and the "proletariat
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
", more explicitly, the wage laborers. Marx believed that the industrial workers -and only them- would organize together, abolish the state, take control over the means of production, collectivize them, and create a classless society
Classless society
Classless society refers to a society in which no one is born into a social class. Such distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society.Since these distinctions are difficult to...
administered by and for workers. He believed that only the workers have the motive and power to do that. For this reason, he dismissed peasants,the "petty-bourgeois", and the "lumpen-proletariat"—the unemployed "underclass"—as incapable of creating revolution.
The anarchist class analysis predates Marxism and contradicts it. Anarchists argue that it is not the whole bourgeoisie who has control over the means of production and the state, but only a minority of them, which is part of the ruling class, but has its own concerns. Also, traditionally anarchists have rejected Marx's dismissal of the lumpen proletariat and the peasantry as revolutionary and argued that a revolution, in order to be successful, needs the support of the peasants. Classical Anarchists believed that this is only possible through the redistribution of land. That is, they explicitly reject imposing state property of the land, although voluntary collectivization is seen as more efficient and thus supported (indeed, during the Spanish revolution anarchists impulsed hundreds of collectivizations but only a tiny minority had all the land in the area, small peasants were allowed to cultivate their own land without hired labour).
Some modern anarchists (particularly pareconists) argue that there are three "classes", which have relevance to social change—not two. The first is the labor class (which includes everyone whose labor is involved in producing and distributing goods as well as much of the so-called "service" industry). This includes farmers, peasants, industrial workers, small landowners, small business owners who labor with their employees and blue, pink and white-collar workers. The second is the coordinator class which includes everyone whose labor is primarily concerned with "coordinating" and managing the labor of others primarily on behalf of the bourgeoisie, administrating organizations, setting the intellectual status quo or managing the State apparatus. The anarchist definition of the "coordinator class" includes people such as bureaucrats, technocrats, managers, administrators, middle-class intellectuals (such as economists, political and social scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, etc.), physical scientists, judges, lawyers, military officials, political party organizers and leaders, etc. And finally the elite owning class or "capital class" which derives its income from its control of wealth, land, property and resources. Marxists vigorously debate the exact composition of the middle class under capitalism. Some also describe a "co-ordinating class" which implements capitalism on behalf of the capitalists, composed of the petit bourgeoisie, professional
Professional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
s and managers. Others dispute this, freely using the term "middle class" to refer to affluent white-collar workers as described above (even though, in Marxist terms, they are part of the proletariat
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
—the working class). Still others (for example, Council communists
Council communism
Council communism is a current of libertarian Marxism that emerged out of the November Revolution in the 1920s, characterized by its opposition to state capitalism/state socialism as well as its advocacy of workers' councils as the basis for workers' democracy.Originally affiliated with the...
) allege, like anarchists, that there is a class comprising intellectuals, technocrats
Technocracy (bureaucratic)
Technocracy is a form of government where technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. Economists, engineers, scientists, health professionals, and those who have knowledge, expertise or skills would compose the governing body...
and managers which seeks power in its own right. This last group of communists allege that such technocratic middle classes seized power and government for themselves in Soviet-style societies
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Anarchists contend that Marxism fails, and will always fail, because it creates a dictatorship of the coordinating technocratic/managerial class and that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a logical impossibility. Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
foreshadowed this argument when he wrote:
Some believe that Marxism fails because its theoretical "socialist mode of production" involves centralizing and empowering the State apparatus which empowers people from the coordinator class to seize control of the State and means of production to manage the labor class, effectively acting as a surrogate capital class. However, this is less of a problem for libertarian Marxists who believe that such as State apparatus should operate on working class-led participatory democracy or even as a consociational state.
Key differences thus include the fact that Anarchists do not differentiate between peasants, lumpen, and proletarians and instead define all people who work for the profit of others as members of the working class, regardless of occupation; and that anarchists do differentiate between the economic and political elites who set policy and the business and government functionaries that carry those policies out whereas Marxists lump the two together.
Further, some Anarchists argue that Marxism fails because it springs from the minds of middle class intellectuals, while arguing that anarchism springs spontaneously from the self-activity and self-organization of the labor class. They point to the fact that the major schools of Marxism are often named after the intellectuals who formed the movements through high analytical and philosophical praxis theorization. While schools of Anarchism tend to emerge from organizational principles or forms of practice and are rarely (if ever) named after or centered around an individual intellectual. Anarchists distinguish themselves by what they do, and how they organize themselves where as Marxists tend to distinguish themselves by their strategic approach and their philosophical or intellectual methodology. Marxists, however, contend that their ideas are not new ideologies which sprang from intellectuals but are ideas which form from the class contradictions of each economic and social mode of history. They argue that Marxian socialism in particular arose from the minds of the working class due to the class contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. Some Marxists even argue that anarchism springs from the ideas of proletarians (or even petty bourgeoisie) who have been marginalized by capitalism as an unorganized and unrefined reactionary struggle against the forces of capitalism.
Other axes of oppression
The Marxist analysis of class struggles and of power as the cause of injustice has consequences on how Marxists relate themselves to the liberation movements of groups such as women, indigenous peoplesIndigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
, ethnic minorities, and cultural minorities (such as homosexuals). Classical Marxism
Classical Marxism
Classical Marxism refers to the social theory expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as contrasted with later developments in Marxism.-Karl Marx:...
generally dismissed such movements since, for Marxists, class struggle had to take precedence over all other forms of struggle. They argued that only the class struggle could allow the working class to seize power via seizing the state. Once state power had been seized, issues like racism or sexism, could be much more easily to deal with. Since the 1970s, however, most Marxist organizations explicitly support such liberation movements, not only because they are worthy in and of themselves, but also on the grounds that they are seen as necessary for a working-class revolution. Many Marxists believe that attempts by oppressed people to liberate themselves will continue to fail to achieve their full aims until class society is done away with, because under capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and other class societies, social power rests at the point of production.
Anarchists, other political movements and a lot of theorists criticize classical Marxism for giving class priority and argue that this way of explaining social movements denigrates other oppressions, which operate with their own independent dynamics. Most Anarchists see liberation movements by oppressed people as fundamentally legitimate, be they "peasants", "proletarians", or bourgeoisie, without needing to fit these movements into a predetermined schema for revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
. However, many anarchists believe that single issue struggles are extremely limited and not powerful enough to change in depth societal conditions. Nevertheless, they still support and participate in them since they still think of them as useful.
Marxists tend to view people as sharing a certain class consciousness
Class consciousness
Class consciousness is consciousness of one's social class or economic rank in society. From the perspective of Marxist theory, it refers to the self-awareness, or lack thereof, of a particular class; its capacity to act in its own rational interests; or its awareness of the historical tasks...
based on their station in capitalist society. They believe that people share a collective socio-economic mindset and that freedom comes from liberating the class of its class status shackles, thus eventually empowering the individual. Anarchists on the other hand tend to view people as social individuals who share a common condition in capitalist society, but don't necessarily share a uniform class consciousness.
Religion
Religion is another area of disagreement amongst anarchists and Marxists. Marx in the Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right described religion as the instrument of the bourgeois class to easily dominate the minds of the proletariat and inspire subservience to authority and acceptance of the status quo in return for future reward in the after death 'life'. Most Marxists tend to envision a "pure communism" as being free of religion, sometimes promoting violence against clergy and religious institutions. Nonetheless, religious marxists exist all over the world.Despite the hostility of Marxism to organized religion, there have been attempts to fuse the two, Liberation theology
Liberation theology
Liberation theology is a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions...
being the most obvious example. Some Priests associated with Liberation Theology have even joined and fought with armed guerrillas, Camilo Torres
Camilo Torres Restrepo
Father Camilo Torres Restrepo was a Colombian socialist, Roman Catholic priest, a predecessor of liberation theology and a member of the National Liberation Army guerrilla organisation...
, for instance, joined and fought with the ELN (National Liberation Army
National Liberation Army (Colombia)
National Liberation Army is a revolutionary, avowed Marxist guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1964....
) in Colombia and died in combat. Although the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
has actively condemned liberation theology, liberation theology remains influential in parts of Latin America, most notably with the Landless Workers' Movement
Landless Workers' Movement
Landless Workers' Movement is a social movement in Brazil; it is the second largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members in 23 out of Brazil's 26 states. The MST states it carries out land reform in a country it sees as mired by unjust land distribution...
of Brazil.
Anarchists advocate resistance to oppressive and authoritarian institutions, including religious ones; and in extreme cases this may include violent resistance. During the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, for instance, the Catholic Church was one of the biggest landowners and allied itself with the Falangist Fascist movement led by Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
. Opposition to Catholic institutions and the collectivization of church lands by peasants formed a major part of the anarchist revolution that opposed Franco in Barcelona. In the Basque Country
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
, however, most priests defied the church and opposed Fascism and urged their congregations to do likewise, and so on the ground there was little in the way of physical conflict between anarchists and Catholics over religion.
In contrast to Marxism, anarchism has historically been more accepting of personal spirituality and egalitarian religions. Anarchism has also historically gained much more support amongst religious communities and at various times and places explicitly anarchist forms of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions have claimed tens of thousands of members. Some anarchists envision future society as being free of religion while others envision a future society in which egalitarian religions and spirituality being a private matter equally tolerated with non-religious tendencies in a neutral, secular society. A smaller number envision spirituality or egalitarian religions playing a prominent role in society, most recently Neopaganism, with its focus on the sanctity of nature and equality, along with its often decentralized nature, has led to a number of Neopagan inspired anarchists. One of the most prominent is Starhawk
Starhawk
Starhawk is an American writer and activist. She is well known as a theorist of Paganism, and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism. She is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington Post online forum on religion...
, who writes extensively about both spirituality and activism.
Nationalism and relationships with indigenous peoples and stateless nations
Anarchism and Marxism differ in their relationships with Indigenous peoplesIndigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
and national minorities. The classical Anarchist position was that the coming revolution would wipe away all distinctions of nationality, since nationality is socially constructed, that the proletariat has no "nation", and that the natural form for socialism was internationalism
Proletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
. This remained the established position of the entire anti-capitalist left up until the early 1900s and still holds considerable sway in both anarchist and Marxist circles. Marxists acknowledge boundaries and development of the nation state.
During the build-up to the Russian revolution, however, Lenin and the Bolsheviks found it expedient to promise independence to the various indigenous non-Russian national minorities, notably the Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
and the Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
, in return for their support against the Czarist empire. Whilst some Bolsheviks continued to support this position, the dominant Bolshevik faction grouped around Lenin in Moscow first drove the National Communists
National communism
The term National Communism describes the ethnic minority communist currents that arose in the former Russian Empire after Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power in October 1917....
underground and the liquidating them in 1928. Subsequently all nationalist movements throughout the USSR were brutally crushed by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and all their successors until the collapse of the USSR as a political unit. In the run-up to World War II Russia's foreign policy centered around the idea of National Bolshevism
National Bolshevism
National Bolshevism is a political movement that claims to combine elements of nationalism and Bolshevism. It is often anti-capitalist in tone, and sympathetic towards certain nationalist forms of communism and socialism...
, through which the Bolshevik political elite in Russia sought to instigate and support communist-nationalist revolutions around the world, most notably in Hungary and Germany, and then absorb the newly independent areas into a Soviet commonwealth—a goal that was achieved after World War II with the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
. Elements of this persisted in Soviet foreign policy throughout the cold war and helped motivate support of nationalist and anti-imperialist movements throughout the third world. Aid by Russia to the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese revolution was driven by the same motivation, but once in power Mao refused to allow the USSR to control Chinese policy, leading to a break with Stalin that culminated in a brief war between the two powers. The same process would later play out in the relationship between Communist rulers in China and Vietnam.
During the Chinese revolution a parallel process occurred as Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
and the Chinese Communist Party first promised independence and self-determination to all of China's many stateless nations, and then not only refused to deliver once the CCP's grip on power was solidified but actually invaded and annexed Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
, which he regarded as a renegade province. Every successive Communist government throughout the world has followed this same pattern of first promising indigenous national minorities self-determination in order to gain their support and then actively opposing that self-determination once in power. In a nutshell, the general policy of Marxist governments from Lenin on has been to support revolution nationalism and the rights of indigenous groups in theory and to oppose it in practice. Most recently, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
were accused of carrying out campaigns of ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
against indigenous peoples in order to seize their land.
Ward Churchill
Ward Churchill
Ward LeRoy Churchill is an author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007. The primary focus of his work is on the historical treatment of political dissenters and Native Americans by the United States government...
has gone so far as to argue in his essay on Marxism and Indigenism that Marxism is inherently imperialist and racist in effect, if not in intent, because it is based on the idea of historical progress and industrialization as inevitable, and sees industrial proletarian-based societies as more "advanced" than other societies (particularly indigenous societies). Other scholars argue that the conflict has to do with the demands of running a State structure and argue that if the Bolsheviks had come to power in Poland (for example) instead of Russia they would have had to become Polish nationalists and would have bitterly opposed Russian attempts to dominate Poland. Seizing the Russian State, however, meant that they had to defend the interests of that State; and the rights of stateless nations thus became anathema.
The position of Anarchism is somewhat the reverse. Most Anarchists, both historically and up to the present day, see borders and national divisions as detrimental and envision a world in which distinctions of race and ethnicity fade and disappear over time as the ideal. In practice, however, Anarchism is based on small-scale systems of self-determination, local self-governance, and mutual aid that fulfill the desire of national minorities for self-determination on a defacto basis; and has thus been historically compatible with anti-state forms of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
. The most notable collaboration, of course, being the movements for self-rule by the Catalans
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
and Basques
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
in Spain which found expression under the banner of the anarchist CNT
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...
during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. More recently there has been an attempt at an explicit fusion of Anarchism and native-American political traditions manifested in the modern Indigenist movement. Anti-State nationalist organizations that explicitly describe their politics as Anarchist currently exist in Ireland and Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
. Many members of the modern American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
also consider themselves Anarchists.
Methodological disagreements
Marxism uses a form of analysis of human societies called "historical materialismHistorical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
." The central idea of historical materialism is the idea that people live in a determined material world, and act in order to produce changes upon this predetermined world, without being able to fundamentally change it. In economic terms, the relations of production
Relations of production
Relations of production is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of historical materialism, and in Das Kapital...
are the driving force of history. Underlying these processes, as a dialectical background notion, is the idea that contradictions and opposed social groups are the ones that form and drive social progress.
Marx formulated the concept of historical materialism from a critique of Hegel's Idealism and dialectics. Marx only applied historical materialism to human history; however, Marxists claim that his methodology can be applied to all phenomena and they usually describe it as dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a strand of Marxism synthesizing Hegel's dialectics. The idea was originally invented by Moses Hess and it was later developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
. Anarchist philosopher Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
developed dialectical naturalism
Dialectical naturalism
Dialectical naturalism is a term coined by American philosopher Murray Bookchin to describe the philosophical underpinnings of the political program of social ecology. Dialectical naturalism explores the complex interrelationship between social problems, and the direct consequences they have on the...
out of a combination of Marxist and Hegelian dialectics, and Kropotkin's biological outlook.
Classical Anarchists saw value in historical materialism as a tool for social analysis. Contemporary anarchists use a wide variety of tools of social analysis, historical materialism included. The Irish Workers Solidarity Movement
Workers Solidarity Movement
The Workers Solidarity Movement is an anarchist organisation in Ireland broadly in the platformist tradition of Nestor Makhno. It was set up in 1984 and publishes the paper Workers Solidarity and the magazine Red and Black Revolution....
, for instance, makes agreeing with the historical materialist method's value a central point of unity. Many anarchists, however, dismiss dialectical materialism as a pseudo-science based on untestable and unfalsifiable universal claims. Anarchists were among the first to criticise the dialectical materialist trend as pseudo-science and generally criticised either the Marxist methodologies as such, or the applications of them, on the basis that both historical and dialectical materialism dehumanise people as the agents of history. Within Marxism these criticisms are mirrored by the criticisms of socialist humanists, Western Marxists, Autonomist Marxists and other similar thinkers.
Determinism
A simple interpretation of historical materialism suggests that if Marxism is right about the class forces operating in capitalism, a successful working-class revolution is inevitable. Some Marxists, notably the leaders of the Second InternationalSecond International
The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...
in the late 19th and early 20th century, have believed this. However, the degree to which the revolution must be made by conscious forces has always been a matter of dispute among Marxists, with many arguing that Marx' famous statement that "I am not a Marxist" was a rejection of determinism, and the split was sharpened by the First World War, when the social democratic parties of the Second International supported their respective nations' war efforts. Many Marxist opponents of the war, such as Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
, blamed the Second International's "betrayal" partly on its doctrine of the inevitability of socialism, which justified its attempt to reform existing capitalist states. Luxemburg put the alternatives for the future, instead, as "socialism or barbarism."
Since an influential segment of anarchists reject either dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a strand of Marxism synthesizing Hegel's dialectics. The idea was originally invented by Moses Hess and it was later developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
or historical materialism
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
or both, these anarchists usually do not claim that revolution and the reorganization of society are inevitable, only that they are desirable. Some anarchists, while rejecting dialetical or historical materialism claim other bases for the inevitability of revolution, such as the natural yearning of consciousness for freedom; these anarchists find their mirror within Marxist intellectual movements in individuals such as Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
.
Further reading
- Barker, John H. Individualism and Community: The State in Marx and Early Anarchism. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. ISBN 0-313-24706-4
- Blackledge, Paul (2010) Marxism and anarchism from International SocialismInternational Socialism (journal)International Socialism is a British-based quarterly magazine of socialist theory published by the Socialist Workers Party. It is currently edited by Alex Callinicos, who took over after the death of Chris Harman in November 2009....
See debate - replies to Blackledge by Lucien van der walt and Birchall and response - Carter, Alan, Marx: A Radical Critique. Boulder: Westview Press, 1988. ISBN 0-710-80449-0
- Churchill, WardWard ChurchillWard LeRoy Churchill is an author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007. The primary focus of his work is on the historical treatment of political dissenters and Native Americans by the United States government...
. Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader. New York: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-9316-8 - D'Agostino, Anthony. Marxism and the Russian Anarchists. San Francisco: Germinal Press, 1977. ISBN 0-918064-03-1.
- Dolgoff, Sam (ed.). Bakunin on Anarchism. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2002. ISBN 0-919619-05-3 (Hardcover), ISBN 0-919619-06-1 (Paperback)
- Thomas, Paul. Karl Marx and the Anarchists. London: Routledge, 1985. ISBN 0-7102-0685-2
- Vincent, K. Steven. Between Marxism and Anarchism: Benoit Malon and French Reformist Socialism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. ISBN 0-918064-03-1
External links
- The Philosophical Roots of the Marx-Bakunin Conflict—An outline of the divergent philosophical and methodological foundations of Mikhail Bakunin, as a prime representative of the anarchist critic of Marxism, and Karl Marx, concerning human nature, freedom and political organization.
- Anarchism vs. Marxism—A Marxist perspective on the differences between anarchism and Marxism.
- Anarchy After Leftism—Essay by Bob BlackBob BlackBob Black is an American anarchist. He is the author of The Abolition of Work and Other Essays, Beneath the Underground, Friendly Fire, Anarchy After Leftism, and numerous political essays.-Writing:Some of his work from the early 1980s includes...
, hosted by Infoshop.orgInfoshop.org- History :Infoshop was founded in January 1995 as the Mid-Atlantic Infoshop by Chuck Munson. Having previously co-founded an online archive of anarchist texts, the Spunk Library, in 1992, Munson established Infoshop as a general resource on anarchism, moving to the domain name Infoshop.org in 1998... - Bakunin vs. Marx—A libertarian socialist analysis of the differences between Bakunin in Marx.
- Libertarian Communist Library—Anarchist, Marxist and crossover texts from Libcom.org
- An Anarchist FAQAn Anarchist FAQ"An Anarchist FAQ" is an FAQ written by an international work group of social anarchists connected through the internet. It documents anarchist theory and ideas while arguing that social anarchism is a better form of anarchism than individualist anarchism, which it critiques. It also explores other...
: Section H - Why do anarchists oppose state socialism? & Appendix 3 - Anarchism and Marxism