      Reply to errors and distortions in the SWP's "Marxism and Anarchism"

   In issue no. 1714 of Socialist Worker (dated 16th September 2000) the
   British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) decided to expose anarchism in an
   article entitled [1]"Marxism and Anarchism." However, their article is
   little more than a series of errors and distortions. We shall indicate
   how the SWP lies about anarchist ideas and discuss the real differences
   between anarchism and Marxism. Moreover, we will indicate that the bulk
   of the SWP's article just recycles common Leninist slanders about
   anarchism, slanders that have been refuted many times over.

1. What does the anti-globalisation movement tell us about the effectiveness of
the "vanguard" parties like the SWP?

   The inspiration for their diatribe is clear -- they are worried about
   anarchist influence in the various anti-capitalist and
   anti-globalisation movements and demonstrations which are currently
   occurring across the world. As they put it:

     "The great revolt against capitalism in Seattle last year, and
     similar demonstrations since, have attracted diverse groups of
     protesters. Anarchists, amongst others, have taken part in all of
     those protests."

   Yes, indeed, anarchists have been involved in these demonstrations from
   the start, unlike "vanguard" parties like the SWP who only became aware
   of the significance of these movements once they exploded in the
   streets. That in itself should tell us something about the
   effectiveness of the Bolshevik inspired politics the SWP raise as an
   alternative to anarchism. Rather than being at the vanguard of these
   demonstrations and movements, parties like the SWP have been,
   post-Seattle, busy trying to catch up with them. Nor is this the only
   time this has happened.

   In Russia, in February 1917, for example, the Bolshevik party opposed
   the actions that produced the revolution which overthrew the Tsar.
   After weeks of strikes with police attacks on factories, the most
   oppressed part of the working class, the women textile workers, took
   the initiative. Demands for bread and attacks on bakeries were
   superseded by a massive demonstration of women workers on International
   Women's Day. The women had ignored a local Bolshevik directive to wait
   until May Day! The early slogan of "Bread!" was quickly followed by
   "Down with the autocracy! Down with the war!" By February 24th, half of
   Petrograd was on strike. The workers did go to their factories, not to
   work, but to hold meetings, pass resolutions and then go out to
   demonstrate. The Vyborg committee of the Bolsheviks opposed the
   strikes. Luckily for the Russian workers, and unfortunately for the
   Tsar, the Bolsheviks were ignored. If they had followed the Bolsheviks,
   the February Revolution would not have occurred!

   The backward nature of the Bolshevik style of party can also be seen
   from events 12 years earlier. In 1905, workers spontaneously organised
   councils of workers' delegates ("soviets" in Russian). The soviets were
   based on workplaces electing recallable delegates to co-ordinate
   strikes and were created by the Russian workers themselves,
   independently of political parties.

   Far from being at the vanguard of these developments the Bolsheviks
   were, in fact, deeply hostile to them. The Bolshevik Central Committee
   members in Petersburg were uneasy at the thought of a "non-Party" mass
   organisation existing side by side with their party. Instead of seeing
   the Soviet as a form of workers' self-organisation and self-activity
   (and so a key area for area for activity), they regarded it with
   hostility. They saw it as a rival to the party.

   The St. Petersburg Bolsheviks organised a campaign against the Soviet
   due to its "non-Party" nature. They presented an ultimatum to the
   Soviet that it must place itself under the leadership of their party.
   On 24 October they had moved a resolution along the same lines in
   meetings at the various factories, demanding that the Soviet accept the
   Social Democratic programme and tactics and demanding that it must
   define its political stance.

   The Bolshevik Central Committee then published a resolution, that was
   binding upon all Bolsheviks throughout Russia, insisting that the
   soviets must accept the party programme. Agitation against the soviet
   continued. On 29 October, the Bolshevik's Nevsky district committee
   declared inadmissible for Social Democrats to participate in any kind
   of "workers' parliament" like the Soviet.

   The Bolshevik argument was that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies should
   not have existed as a political organisation and that the social
   democrats must withdraw from it, since its existence acted negatively
   upon the development of the social democratic movement. The Soviet of
   Delegates could remain as a trade union organisation, or not at all.
   Indeed, the Bolsheviks presented the Soviet with an ultimatum: either
   accept the programme of the Bolsheviks or else disband! The Bolshevik
   leaders justified their hostility to the Soviet on the grounds that it
   represented "the subordination of consciousness to spontaneity" -- in
   this they followed Lenin's arguments in What is to be Done?. When they
   moved their ultimatum in the Soviet it was turned down and the
   Bolshevik delegates, led by the Central Committee members, walked out.
   The other delegates merely shrugged their shoulders and proceeded to
   the next point on the agenda.

   If workers had followed the Bolsheviks the 1905 revolution would not
   have occurred and the first major experience of workers' councils would
   never have happened. Rather than being in favour of working class
   self-management and power, the Bolsheviks saw revolution in terms of
   party power. This confusion remained during and after 1917 when the
   Bolsheviks finally supported the soviets (although purely as a means of
   ensuring a Bolshevik government).

   Similarly, during the British Poll Tax rebellion of the late 1980s and
   early 1990s, the SWP dismissed the community based mass non-payment
   campaign. Instead they argued for workers to push their trade unions
   leadership to call strikes to overthrow the tax. Indeed, the even
   argued that there was a "danger that community politics divert people
   from the means to won, from the need to mobilise working class activity
   on a collective basis" by which they meant trade union basis. They
   argued that the state machine would "wear down community resistance if
   it cannot tap the strength of the working class." Of course it goes
   without saying that the aim of the community-based non-payment campaign
   was working class activity on a collective basis. This explains the
   creation of anti-poll tax unions, organising demonstrations,
   occupations of sheriff officers/bailiffs offices and council buildings,
   the attempts to resist warrant sales by direct action, the attempts to
   create links with rank-and-file trade unionists and so on. Indeed, the
   SWP's strategy meant mobilising fewer people in collective struggle as
   trade union members were a minority of those affected by the tax as
   well as automatically excluding those workers not in unions, people who
   were unemployed, housewives, students and so on. Little wonder the SWP
   failed to make much of an impact in the campaign.

   However, once non-payment began in earnest and showed hundreds of
   thousands involved and refusing to pay, overnight the SWP became
   passionate believers in the collective class power of community based
   non-payment. They argued, in direct contradiction to their earlier
   analysis, that the state was "shaken by the continuing huge scale of
   non-payment." [quoted by Trotwatch, Carry on Recruiting, pp. 29-31]

   The SWP proved to be totally unresponsive to new forms of struggle and
   organisation produced by working class people when resisting the
   government. In this they followed the Bolshevik tradition closely --
   the Bolsheviks initially ignored the soviets created during the 1905
   Russian Revolution and then asked them to disband. They only recognised
   their importance in 1917, 12 years after that revolution was defeated
   and the soviets had re-appeared.

   Therefore, the fact that the self-proclaimed "vanguard of the
   proletarian" is actually miles behind the struggle comes as no
   surprise. Nor are their slanders against those, like anarchists, who
   are at the front of the struggle unsurprising. They produced similar
   articles during the poll tax rebellion as well, to counter anarchist
   influence by smearing our ideas.

2. What does the SWP miss out in its definition of anarchism?

   The SWP continue:

     "Anarchism is generally taken to mean a rejection of all authority."

   One question immediately arises. What do anarchists mean by the term
   "authority"? Without knowing that, it will be difficult to evaluate the
   SWP's arguments.

   Kropotkin provides the answer. He argued that "the origin of the
   anarchist inception of society . . . [lies in] the criticism . . . of
   the hierarchical organisations and the authoritarian conceptions of
   society; and . . . the analysis of the tendencies that are seen in the
   progressive movements of mankind." He stresses that anarchism "refuses
   all hierarchical organisation." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets,
   p. 158 and p. 137]

   Thus anarchism rejects authority in the sense, to use Malatesta's
   words, of "the delegation of power, that is the abdication of
   initiative and sovereignty of all into the hands a few." [Anarchy, p.
   40] Once this is clearly understood, it will quickly been seen that the
   SWP create a straw man to defeat in argument.

   Moreover, by concentrating on what anarchism is against the SWP can
   ignore what anarchism is for. This is important as to discuss the
   positive ideas of anarchism would mean having to discuss anarchists
   ideas on organisation, why we oppose centralisation, favour federalism
   as a means of co-ordinating decisions, why we propose self-management
   in place of government, and so on. To do this would mean accurately
   presenting libertarian theory rather than a just series of slanders,
   which, of course, the SWP would hate to do.

   So what is anarchism for?

   Anarchism derives from the Greek for "without authority"
   or "without rulers" and this informs anarchist theory and visions of a
   better world. This means that anarchism is against the "domination of
   man by man" (and woman by woman, woman by man, and so on). However,
   "[a]s knowledge has penetrated the governed masses . . . the people
   have revolted against the form of authority then felt most intolerable.
   This spirit of revolt in the individual and the masses, is the natural
   and necessary fruit of the spirit of domination; the vindication of
   human dignity, and the saviour of social life." Thus "freedom is the
   necessary preliminary to any true and equal human association."
   [Charlotte Wilson, Anarchist Essays, p. 54 and p. 40] In other words,
   anarchist comes from the struggle of the oppressed against their rulers
   and is an expression of individual and social freedom. Anarchism was
   born from the class struggle.

   This means, positively, that anarchists stress the need for
   self-government (often called self-management) of both individuals and
   groups. Self-management within free associations and decision making
   from the bottom-up is the only way domination can be eliminated. This
   is because, by making our own decisions ourselves, we automatically end
   the division of society into governors and governed (i.e. end
   hierarchy). In other words, those affected by a decision make that
   decision. Anarchism clearly means support for freedom and equality and
   so all forms of hierarchical organisation (such as the state and the
   capitalist workplace) and authoritarian social relationship (such as
   sexism, racism, homophobia and wage labour) must be abolished. This
   means that anarchist organisations must be self-managed, decentralised
   and based on federalism. Only this form of organisation can end the
   division of society into rulers and ruled, oppressor and oppressed,
   exploiter and exploited and create a society of free and equal
   individuals.

   This is why anarchists stress such things as decision making by mass
   assemblies and the co-ordination of decisions by mandated and
   recallable delegates. The federal structure which unites these basic
   assemblies would allow local affairs to be decided upon locally and
   directly, with wider issues discussed and decided upon at their
   appropriate level and by all involved. This would allow those affected
   by a decision to have a say in it, so allowing them to manage their own
   affairs directly and without hierarchy. This, in turn, would encourage
   the self-reliance, self-confidence and initiative of those involved. As
   a necessary complement of our opposition to authority is support for
   "direct action."
   This means that people, rather than looking to leaders or politicians
   to act for them, look to themselves and the own individual and
   collective strength to solve their own problems. This also encourages
   self-liberation, self-reliance and self-confidence as the prevailing
   culture would be "if we want something sorted out, we have to do it
   ourselves" -- in other words, a "do it yourself" mentality.

   Therefore, the positive side of anarchism (which naturally flows from
   its opposition to authority) results in a political theory which argues
   that people must control their own struggles, organisations and affairs
   directly. This means we support mass assemblies and their federation
   via councils of mandated delegates subject to recall if they break
   their mandates (i.e. they act as they see fit, i.e. as politicians or
   bureaucrats, and not as the people who elected them desire). This way
   people directly govern themselves and control their own lives. It means
   we oppose the state and support free federations of self-governing
   associations and communes. It means we oppose capitalism and support
   workers' self-management. It means we reject hierarchy, centralism and
   authoritarian structures and argue for self-managed organisations,
   built from the bottom up and always accountable to the base. It means
   we consider the direct control of struggles and movements by those
   involved as not only essential in the here and now but also essential
   training for living in a free, libertarian socialist society (for
   example, workers direct and total control of their strikes and unions
   trains them to control their workplaces and communities during and
   after the revolution). It means we oppose hierarchy in all its forms
   and support free association of equals. In other words, anarchism can
   generally be taken to mean support for self-government or
   self-management.

   By discussing only the negative side of anarchism, by missing out what
   kinds of authority anarchists oppose, the SWP ensure that these aspects
   of our ideas are not mentioned in their article. For good reason as it
   puts Marxism in a bad light.

3. Why does mentioning the history of anarchism weaken the SWP's argument?

   The SWP correctly argue that we "live in a world of bullying line
   managers, petty school rules, oppressive police, and governments that
   serve the rich and powerful." However, they trivialise anarchism (and
   the natural feelings that result from such domination) by stating
   "[e]veryone who hates that has, at least at times, felt a streak of
   'anarchist' revolt against authority." Thus anarchism is presented as
   an emotional response rather than as valid, coherent intellectual
   opposition to the state, wage labour, inequality and hierarchical
   authority in general. But, of course, anarchism is more than this, as
   the SWP acknowledge:

     "Anarchism, however, is more than a personal reaction against the
     tyrannies of capitalism. It is a set of political beliefs which have
     been held up as an alternative to the revolutionary socialist ideas
     of Karl Marx. Anarchist ideas have, on occasion, had a mass
     influence on movements against capitalism."

   Given that the "revolutionary socialist ideas" of Marx have been proven
   wrong on numerous occasions while Bakunin's predictions were proven
   right, anarchists humbly suggest that anarchism is a valid alternative
   to Marxism. For example, Bakunin correctly predicted that when "the
   workers . . . send common workers . . . to Legislative Assemblies . . .
   The worker-deputies, transplanted into a bourgeois environment, into an
   atmosphere of purely bourgeois ideas, will in fact cease to be workers
   and, becoming Statesmen, they will become bourgeois . . . For men do
   not make their situations; on the contrary, men are made by them." [The
   Basic Bakunin, p. 108] The history of the Marxist Social Democratic
   Parties across the world proved him right.

   Similarly, Bakunin predicted that Marx's "dictatorship of the
   proletariat" would become the "dictatorship over the proletariat." The
   experience of the Russian Revolution proved him correct -- once the
   Bolshevik party had become the government power became centralised at
   the top, the workers' soviets quickly became a cog in the state
   machinery rubber-stamping the decrees of the Bolshevik government,
   workers' control of production by factory committees was replaced by
   state appointed managers and so on. The "socialist" state quickly
   became a bureaucratic monster without real control from below (indeed,
   the Bolsheviks actually disbanded soviets when opposition parties won a
   majority in them at the start of 1918). The start of the Civil War in
   May 1918 just made things worse.

   The SWP continue by arguing:

     "Socialists and anarchists share a hatred of capitalism. They have
     often fought alongside each other in major battles against the
     capitalist system. They struggled together in the Europe-wide mass
     strikes at the end of the First World War and the inspiring Spanish
     Revolution in 1936, as well as in countless smaller battles today."

   Which is true. They also fail to mention that the mass-strikes at the
   end of the First World War were defeated by the actions of the
   Social-Democratic Parties and trade unions. These parties were
   self-proclaimed revolutionary Marxist organisations, utilising (as Marx
   had argued) the ballot box and centralised organisations.
   Unsurprisingly, given the tactics and structure, reformism and
   bureaucracy had developed within them. When workers took strike action,
   even occupying their factories in Italy, the bureaucracy of the Social
   Democratic Parties and trade unions acted to undermine the struggle,
   isolating workers and supporting capitalism. Indeed, the German Social
   Democratic Party (which was, pre-1914, considered the jewel in the
   crown of Marxism and the best means to refute the anarchist critique of
   Marxist tactics) actually organised an alliance with the right-wing
   para-military Freikorps to violently suppress the revolution. The
   Marxist movement had degenerated into bourgeois parties, as Bakunin
   predicted.

   It is also strange that the SWP mention the "inspiring Spanish
   Revolution in 1936" as this revolution was mainly anarchist in its
   "inspiring" features. Workers took over workplaces and the land,
   organising them under workers' self-management. Direct democracy was
   practised by hundreds of thousands of workers in line with the
   organisational structures of the anarchist union the C.N.T. In
   contrast, the Russian Revolution saw power become centralised into the
   hands of the Bolshevik party leadership and workers' self- management
   of production was eliminated in favour of one-man management imposed
   from above (see M. Brinton's The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control for
   details).

4. How is the SWP wrong about centralisation?

   The SWP continue by arguing that "there are differences between
   revolutionary socialism and anarchism. Both understand the need for
   organisation but disagree over what form that organisation takes." This
   is a vast step forward in the usual Marxist slander that anarchists
   reject the need for organisation and so should be welcomed.
   Unfortunately the rest of the discussion on this issue falls back into
   the usual swamp of slander.

   They argue that "[e]very struggle, from a local campaign against
   housing privatisation to a mass strike of millions of workers, raises
   the need for organisation. People come together and need mechanisms for
   deciding what to do and how to do it." They continue by arguing that
   "Anarchism says that organisation has nothing to do with
   centralisation. For anarchism, any form of centralisation is a type of
   authority, which is oppressive."

   This is true, anarchists do argue that centralisation places power at
   the centre, so disempowering the people at the base of an organisation.
   In order to co-ordinate activity anarchists propose federal structures,
   made up on mandated delegates from autonomous assemblies. In this way,
   co-ordination is achieved while ensuring that power remains at the
   bottom of the organisation, in the hands of those actually fighting or
   doing the work. Federalism does not deny the need to make agreements
   and to co-ordinate decisions. Far from it -- it was put forward by
   anarchists precisely to ensure co-ordination of joint activity and to
   make agreements in such a way as to involve those subject to those
   decisions in the process of making them. Federalism involves people in
   managing their own affairs and so they develop their initiative,
   self-reliance, judgement and spirit of revolt so that they can act
   intelligently, quickly and autonomously during a crisis or
   revolutionary moment and show solidarity as and when required instead
   of waiting for commands from above as occurs with centralised
   movements. In other words, federalism is the means to combine
   participation and co-ordination and to create an organisation run from
   the bottom up rather than the top-down. As can be seen, anarchists do
   not oppose co-ordination and co-operation, making agreements and
   implementing them together.

   After mentioning centralisation, the SWP make a massive jump of logic
   and assert:

     "But arguing with someone to join a struggle, and trying to put
     forward tactics and ideas that can take it forward are attempts to
     lead.

     "It is no good people coming together in a struggle, discussing what
     to do and then doing just what they feel like as if no discussion
     had taken place. We always need to take the best ideas and act on
     them in a united way."

   Placing ideas before a group of people is a "lead" but it is not
   centralisation. Moreover, anarchists are not against making agreements!
   Far from it. The aim of federal organisation is to make agreements, to
   co-ordinate struggles and activities. This does not mean ignoring
   agreements. As Kropotkin argued, the commune "cannot any longer
   acknowledge any superior: that, above it, there cannot be anything,
   save the interests of the Federation, freely embraced by itself in
   concert with other Communes." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 259]
   This vision was stressed in the C.N.T.'s resolution on Libertarian
   Communism made in May, 1936, which stated that "the foundation of this
   administration will be the Commune. These Communes are to be autonomous
   and will be federated at regional and national levels for the purpose
   of achieving goals of a general nature. The right of autonomy is not to
   preclude the duty of implementation of agreements regarding collective
   benefits." [quoted by Jose Pierats, The C.N.T. in the Spanish
   Revolution, p. 68] In the words of Malatesta:

     "But an organisation, it is argued, presupposes an obligation to
     co-ordinate one's own activities with those of others; thus it
     violates liberty and fetters initiative. As we see it, what really
     takes away liberty and makes initiative impossible is the isolation
     which renders one powerless. Freedom is not an abstract right but
     the possibility of acting . . . it is by co-operation with his
     fellows that man finds the means to express his activity and his
     power of initiative." [Life and Ideas, pp. 86-7]

   Hence anarchists do not see making collective decisions and working in
   a federation as an abandonment of autonomy or a violation of anarchist
   theory and principles. Rather, we see such co-operation and
   co-ordination, generated from below upwards, as an essential means of
   exercising and protecting freedom.

   The SWP's comment against anarchism is a typical Marxist position. The
   assumption seems to be that "centralisation" or "centralism" equals
   co-ordination and, because we reject centralisation, anarchists must
   reject co-ordination, planning and agreements. However, in actuality,
   anarchists have always stressed the need for federalism to co-ordinate
   joint activities, stressing that decision-making and organisation must
   flow from below upwards so that the mass of the population can manage
   their own affairs directly (i.e. practice self-management and so
   anarchy). Unfortunately, Marxists fail to acknowledge this, instead
   asserting we are against co-operation, co-ordination and making
   agreements. The SWP's arguments are an example of this, making spurious
   arguments about the need for making agreements.

   In this the SWP are following in a long-line of Marxist inventions. For
   example, Engels asserted in his infamous diatribe "The Bakuninists at
   work" that Bakunin "[a]s early as September 1870 (in his Lettres a un
   francais [Letters to a Frenchman]) . . . had declared that the only way
   to drive the Prussians out of France by a revolutionary struggle was to
   do away with all forms of centralised leadership and leave each town,
   each village, each parish to wage war on its own." [Marx, Engels and
   Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 141]

   In fact, the truth is totally different. Bakunin does, of course,
   reject "centralised leadership" as it would be "necessarily very
   circumscribed, very short-sighted, and its limited perception cannot,
   therefore, penetrate the depth and encompass the whole complex range of
   popular life." However, it is a falsehood to state that he denies the
   need for co-ordination of struggles and federal organisation from the
   bottom up in that or any other work. As he puts it, the revolution must
   "foster the self-organisation of the masses into autonomous bodies,
   federated from the bottom upwards." With regards to the peasants, he
   thinks they will "come to an understanding, and form some kind of
   organisation . . . to further their mutual interests . . . the
   necessity to defend their homes, their families, and their own lives
   against unforeseen attack . . . will undoubtedly soon compel them to
   contract new and mutually suitable arrangements." The peasants would be
   "freely organised from the bottom up." ["Letters to a French", Bakunin
   on Anarchism, p. 196, p. 206 and p. 207] In this he repeated his
   earlier arguments concerning social revolution -- claims Engels was
   well aware of, just as he was well aware of the statements by Bakunin
   in his "Letters to a Frenchman." In other words, Engels deliberately
   lied about Bakunin's political ideas. It appears that the SWP is simply
   following the Marxist tradition in their article.

5. Why does the SWP's "picket line is 'authoritarian'" argument totally miss the
point?

   They continue by arguing:

     "Not all authority is bad. A picket line is 'authoritarian.' It
     tries to impose the will of the striking workers on the boss, the
     police and on any workers who may be conned into scabbing on the
     strike."

   What should strike the reader about this example is its total lack of
   class analysis. In this the SWP follow Engels. In his essay On
   Authority, Engels argues that a "revolution is certainly the most
   authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the
   population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles,
   bayonets and cannon-authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and
   if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must
   maintain this rule by means of the terror its arms inspire in the
   reactionaries." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 733]

   However, such an analysis is without a class basis and so will, by
   necessity, mislead the writer and the reader. Engels argues that
   revolution is the imposition by "one part of the population" on
   another. Very true -- but Engels fails to indicate the nature of class
   society and, therefore, of a social revolution. In a class society "one
   part of the population" constantly "imposes its will upon the other
   part" all the time. In other words, the ruling class imposes its will
   on the working class everyday in work by the hierarchical structure of
   the workplace and in society by the state. Discussing the "population"
   as if it was not divided by classes, and so subject to specific forms
   of authoritarian social relationships, is liberal nonsense. Once we
   recognise that the "population" in question is divided into classes we
   can easily see the fallacy of Engels argument. In a social revolution,
   the act of revolution is the overthrow of the power and authority of an
   oppressing and exploiting class by those subject to that oppression and
   exploitation. In other words, it is an act of liberation in which the
   hierarchical power of the few over the many is eliminated and replaced
   by the freedom of the many to control their own lives. It is hardly
   authoritarian to destroy authority! Thus a social revolution is,
   fundamentally, an act of liberation for the oppressed who act in their
   own interests to end the system in which "one part of population
   imposes its will upon the other" everyday.

   This applies equally to the SWP's example of a picket line. Is a picket
   line really authoritarian because it tries to impose its will on the
   boss, police or scabs? Rather, is it not defending the workers' freedom
   against the authoritarian power of the boss and their lackeys (the
   police and scabs)? Is it "authoritarian" to resist authority and create
   a structure -- a strike assembly and picket line -- which allows the
   formally subordinated workers to manage their own affairs directly and
   without bosses? Is it "authoritarian" to combat the authority of the
   boss, to proclaim your freedom and exercise it? Of course not. The SWP
   are playing with words.

   Needless to say, it is a large jump from the "authority" of a strikers'
   assembly to that of a highly centralised "workers' state" but that, of
   course, is what the SWP wish the reader to do. Comparing a strikers'
   assembly and picket line -- which is a form of self-managed association
   -- with a state cannot be done. It fails to recognise the fundamental
   difference. In the strikers' assembly and picket line the strikers
   themselves decide policy and do not delegate power away. In a state,
   power is delegated into the hands of a few who then use that power as
   they see fit. This by necessity disempowers those at the base, who are
   turned into mere electors and order takers. Such a situation can only
   spell death of a social revolution, which requires the active
   participation of all if it is to succeed. It also exposes the central
   fallacy of Marxism, namely that it claims to desire a society based on
   the participation of everyone yet favours a form of organisation --
   centralisation -- that precludes that participation.

6. Why are the SWP's examples of "state functions" wrong?

   The SWP continue their diatribe against anarchism:

     "Big workers' struggles throw up an alternative form of authority to
     the capitalist state. Militant mass strikes throw up workers'
     councils. These are democratic bodies, like strike committees. But
     they take on organising 'state functions' -- transport, food
     distribution, defence of picket lines and workers' areas from the
     police and army, and so on."

   To state the obvious, transportation and food distribution are not
   "state functions." They are economic functions. Similarly, defence is
   not a "state function" as such -- after all, individuals can and do
   defend themselves against aggression, strikers organise themselves to
   defend themselves against cops and hired strike breakers, and so on.
   This means that defence can be organised in a libertarian fashion,
   directly by those involved and based on self-managed workers' militias
   and federations of free communes. It need not be the work of a state
   nor need it be organised in a statist (i.e. hierarchical) fashion like,
   for example, the current bourgeois state and military or the Bolshevik
   Red Army (where the election of officers, soldiers' councils and
   self-governing assemblies were abolished by Trotsky in favour of
   officers appointed from above). So "defence" is not a state function.

   What is a "state function" is imposing the will of a minority -- the
   government, the boss, the bureaucrat -- onto the population via
   professional bodies such as the police and military. This is what the
   Bolshevik state did, with workers' councils turned into state bodies
   executing the decrees of the government and using a specialised and
   hierarchical army and police force to do so. The difference is
   important. Luigi Fabbri sums up it well:

     "The mistake of authoritarian communists in this connection is the
     belief that fighting and organising are impossible without
     submission to a government; and thus they regard anarchists . . . as
     the foes of all organisation and all co-ordinated struggle. We, on
     the other hand, maintain that not only are revolutionary struggle
     and revolutionary organisation possible outside and in spite of
     government interference but that, indeed, that is the only effective
     way to struggle and organise, for it has the active participation of
     all members of the collective unit, instead of their passively
     entrusting themselves to the authority of the supreme leaders.

     "Any governing body is an impediment to the real organisation of the
     broad masses, the majority. Where a government exists, then the only
     really organised people are the minority who make up the government;
     and . . . if the masses do organise, they do so against it, outside
     it, or at the very least, independently of it. In ossifying into a
     government, the revolution as such would fall apart, on account of
     its awarding that government the monopoly of organisation and of the
     means of struggle."
     ["Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism", in The Poverty of Statism,
     pp. 13-49, Albert Meltzer (ed.), p. 27]

   Thus the difference between anarchists and Leninists is not whether the
   organisations workers' create in struggle will be the framework of a
   free society (or the basis of the Commune). Indeed, anarchists have
   been arguing this for longer than Marxists have. The difference is
   whether these organisations remain self-managed or whether they become
   part of a centralised state. In the words of Camillo Berneri:

     "The Marxists . . . foresee the natural disappearance of the State
     as a consequence of the destruction of classes by the means of 'the
     dictatorship of the proletariat,' that is to say State Socialism,
     whereas the Anarchists desire the destruction of the classes by
     means of a social revolution which eliminates, with the classes, the
     State. The Marxists, moreover, do not propose the armed conquest of
     the Commune by the whole proletariat, but the propose the conquest
     of the State by the party which imagines that it represents the
     proletariat. The Anarchists allow the use of direct power by the
     proletariat, but they understand by the organ of this power to be
     formed by the entire corpus of systems of communist
     administration-corporate organisations [i.e. industrial unions],
     communal institutions, both regional and national-freely constituted
     outside and in opposition to all political monopoly by parties and
     endeavouring to a minimum administrational centralisation."
     ["Dictatorship of the Proletariat and State Socialism", Cienfuegos
     Press Anarchist Review, no. 4, p. 52]

   So, anarchists agree, in "big workers' struggles" organisation is
   essential and can form an alternative to the capitalist state. However,
   such a framework only becomes an "authority" when power is transferred
   from the base into the hands of an executive committee at the top.
   Strike and community assemblies, by being organs of self-management,
   are not an "authority" in the same sense that the state is or the boss
   is. Rather, they are the means by which people can manage their own
   struggles (and so affairs) directly, to govern themselves and so do
   without the need for hierarchical authority.

   The SWP, in other words, confuse two very different things.

7. What is ironic about the SWP's comment that workers' councils must "break up"
the capitalist state?

   After misunderstanding basic concepts, the SWP treat us to a history
   lesson:

     "Such councils were a feature of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and
     1917, the German Revolution after the First World War, the Spanish
     Revolution of 1936, and many other great struggles. Socialists argue
     that these democratic workers' organisations need to take power from
     the capitalists and break up their state."

   Anarchists agree. Indeed, they argued that workers' organisations
   should "break up" and replace the state long before Lenin discovered
   this in 1917. For example, Bakunin argued in the late 1860s that the
   International Workers' Association, an "international organisation of
   workers' associations from all countries", would "be able to take the
   revolution into its own hands" and be "capable of replacing this
   departing political world of States and bourgeoisie." The "natural
   organisation of the masses" was "organisation by trade association," in
   other words, by unions, "from the bottom up." The means of creating
   socialism would be "emancipation through practical action . . .
   workers' solidarity in their struggle against the bosses. It means
   trades unions, organisation" The very process of struggle would create
   the framework of a new society, a federation of workers' councils, as
   "strikes indicate a certain collective strength already, a certain
   understanding among the workers . . . each strike becomes the point of
   departure for the formation of new groups." He stresses the
   International was a product of the class war as it "has not created the
   war between the exploiter and the exploited; rather, the requirements
   of that war have created the International." Thus the seeds of the
   future society are created by the class struggle, by the needs of
   workers to organise themselves to resist the boss and the state. [The
   Basic Bakunin, p. 110, p. 139, p. 103 and p. 150]

   He stressed that the revolution would be based on federations of
   workers' associations, in other words, workers' councils:

     "the federative alliance of all working men's associations . . .
     [will] constitute the Commune . . . [the] Communal Council [will be]
     composed of . . . delegates . . . vested with plenary but
     accountable and removable mandates. . . all provinces, communes and
     associations . . . by first reorganising on revolutionary lines . .
     . [will] constitute the federation of insurgent associations,
     communes and provinces . . . [and] organise a revolutionary force
     capable defeating reaction . . . [and for] self-defence . . . [The]
     revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme
     control must always belong to the people organised into a free
     federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . .
     organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary
     delegation. . ." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 170-2]

   And:

     "The future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom
     up, by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in
     their unions, then in the communes, regions, nations and finally in
     a great federation, international and universal." [Op. Cit., p. 206]

   Thus it is somewhat ironic to have Leninists present basic anarchist
   ideas as if they had thought of them first!

   Then again, the ability of the Marxists to steal anarchist ideas and
   claim them as their own is well know. They even rewrite history to do
   so. For example, the SWP's John Rees in the essay "In Defence of
   October" argues that "since Marx's writings on the Paris Commune" a
   "cornerstone of revolutionary theory" was "that the soviet is a
   superior form of democracy because it unifies political and economic
   power." [International Socialism, no. 52, p. 25] Nothing could be
   further from the truth, as Marx's writings on the Paris Commune prove.

   The Paris Commune, as Marx himself argued, was "formed of the municipal
   councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the
   town." ["The Civil War in France", Selected Works, p. 287] As Marx made
   clear, it was definitely not based on delegates from workplaces and so
   could not unify political and economic power. Indeed, to state that the
   Paris Commune was a soviet is simply a joke, as is the claim that
   Marxists supported soviets as revolutionary organs to smash and replace
   the state from 1871. In fact Marxists did not subscribe to this
   "cornerstone of revolutionary theory" until 1917 when Lenin argued that
   the Soviets would be the best means of ensuring a Bolshevik government.

   Indeed the only political movement which took the position Rees falsely
   ascribes to Marxism was anarchism. This can be clearly seen from
   Bakunin's works, a few representative quotes we have provided above.
   Moreover, Bakunin's position dates, we must stress, from before the
   Paris Commune. This position has been argued by revolutionary
   anarchists ever since -- decades before Marxists did.

   Similarly, Rees argues that "the socialist revolution must counterpose
   the soviet to parliament . . . because it needs an organ which combines
   economic power -- the power to strike and take control of the
   workplaces -- with an insurrectionary bid for political power, breaking
   the old state." [Ibid.] However, he is just repeating anarchist
   arguments made decades before Lenin's temporary conversion to the
   soviets. In the words of the anarchist Jura Federation (written in
   1880):

     "The bourgeoisie's power over the popular masses springs from
     economic privileges, political domination and the enshrining of such
     privileges in the laws. So we must strike at the wellsprings of
     bourgeois power, as well as its various manifestations.

     "The following measures strike us as essential to the welfare of the
     revolution, every bit as much as armed struggle against its enemies:

     "The insurgents must confiscate social capital, landed estates,
     mines, housing, religious and public buildings, instruments of
     labour, raw materials, gems and precious stones and manufactured
     products:

     "All political, administrative and judicial authorities are to be
     abolished.

     ". . . What should the organisational measures of the revolution be?

     "Immediate and spontaneous establishment of trade bodies:
     provisional assumption by those of . . . social capital . . .: local
     federation of a trades bodies and labour organisation:

     "Establishment of neighbourhood groups and federations of same . . .

     [. . .]

     "[T]he federation of all the revolutionary forces of the insurgent
     Communes . . . Federation of Communes and organisation of the
     masses, with an eye to the revolution's enduring until such time as
     all reactionary activity has been completely eradicated.

     [. . .]

     "Once trade bodies have been have been established, the next step is
     to organise local life. The organ of this life is to be the
     federation of trades bodies and it is this local federation which is
     to constitute the future Commune."
     [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, pp. 246-7]

   As can be seen, long before Lenin's turn towards the soviets as a means
   of the Bolsheviks taking power, anarchists, not Marxists, had argued
   that we must counterpose the council of workers' delegates (by trade in
   the case of the Jura federation, by workplace in the case of the later
   anarcho-syndicalist unions, anarchist theory and the soviets).
   Anarchists clearly saw that, to quote Bakunin, "[n]o revolution could
   succeed . . . today unless it was simultaneously a political and a
   social revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 141] Unlike Marx, who clearly saw a
   political revolution (the conquest of state power) coming before the
   economic transformation of society ("The political rule of the producer
   cannot coexist with the perpetuation of his social slavery. The Commune
   was therefore to serve as a lever for uprooting the economical
   foundations upon which rests the existence of classes and therefore of
   class-rule." [Marx, Op. Cit., p. 290]). This is why anarchists saw the
   social revolution in terms of economic and social organisation and
   action as its first steps were to eliminate both capitalism and the
   state.

   Rees, in other words, is simply stating anarchist theory as if Marxists
   have been arguing the same thing since 1871!

   Moreover, anarchists predicted other ideas that Marx took from the
   experience of the Paris Commune. Marx praised the fact that each
   delegate to the Commune was "at any time revocable and bound by the
   mandat imperatif (formal instructions) of his constituents . . . [and
   so] strictly responsible agents." [Op. Cit., p. 288] Anarchists had
   held this position a number of years before the Commune introduced it.
   Proudhon was arguing in 1848 for "universal suffrage and as a
   consequence of universal suffrage, we want implementation of the
   binding mandate. Politicians balk at it! Which means that in their
   eyes, the people, in electing representatives, do not appoint
   mandatories but rather abjure their sovereignty! That is assuredly not
   socialism: it is not even democracy." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p.
   63] We find Bakunin arguing exactly the same. For example, in 1868 he
   wrote that the "Revolutionary Communal Council will operate on the
   basis of one or two delegates from each barricade . . . these deputies
   being invested with binding mandates and accountable and revocable at
   all times." [Op. Cit., p. 155]). In addition, the similarities with the
   Commune's political ideas and Proudhon's are clear, as are the
   similarities between the Russian Soviets and Bakunin's views on
   revolution.

   So, as well as predicting the degeneration of social democracy and the
   Russian revolution, anarchists have also predicted such key aspects of
   revolutionary situations as organising on the basis of workplace and
   having delegates mandated and subject to instant recall. Such
   predictions flow from taking part in social movements and analysing
   their tendencies. Moreover, a revolution is the resisting of current
   authorities and an act of self-liberation and so its parallels with
   anarchism are clear. As such the class struggle, revolutionary
   movements and revolutions have a libertarian basis and tendencies and,
   therefore, it is unsurprising that anarchist ideas have spontaneously
   developed in them. Thus we have a two way interaction between ideas and
   action. Anarchist ideas have been produced spontaneously by the class
   struggle due to its inherent nature as a force confronting authority
   and its need for self-activity and self-organisation. Anarchism has
   learned from that struggle and influenced it by its generalisations of
   previous experiences and its basis in opposing hierarchy. Anarchist
   predictions, therefore, come as no surprise.

   Therefore, Marxists have not only been behind the class struggle
   itself, they have also been behind anarchism in terms of practical
   ideas on a social revolution and how to organise to transform society.
   While anarchist ideas have been confirmed by the class struggle,
   Marxist ones have had to be revised to bring them closer to the actual
   state of the struggle and to the theoretical ideas of anarchism. And
   the SWP have the cheek to present these ideas as if their tradition had
   thought of them!

   Little wonder the SWP fail to present an honest account of anarchism.

8. How do the SWP re-write the history of the Russian Revolution?

   Their history lesson continues:

     "This happened in Russia in October 1917 in a revolution led by the
     Bolshevik Party."

   In reality, this did not happen. In October 1917, the Bolshevik Party
   took power in the name of the workers' councils, the councils
   themselves did not take power. This is confirmed by Trotsky, who notes
   that the Bolshevik Party conference of April 1917 "was devoted to the
   following fundamental question: Are we heading toward the conquest of
   power in the name of the socialist revolution or are we helping
   (anybody and everybody) to complete the democratic revolution? . . .
   Lenin's position was this: . . . the capture of the soviet majority;
   the overthrow of the Provisional Government; the seizure of power
   through the soviets." Note, through the soviets not by the soviets thus
   indicating the fact the Party would hold the real power, not the
   soviets of workers' delegates. Moreover, he states that "to prepare the
   insurrection and to carry it out under cover of preparing for the
   Second Soviet Congress and under the slogan of defending it, was of
   inestimable advantage to us." He continued by noting that it was "one
   thing to prepare an armed insurrection under the naked slogan of the
   seizure of power by the party, and quite another thing to prepare and
   then carry out an insurrection under the slogan of defending the rights
   of the Congress of Soviets." The Soviet Congress just provided "the
   legal cover" for the Bolshevik plans rather than a desire to see the
   Soviets actually start managing society. [The Lessons of October]

   In 1920, he argued that "[w]e have more than once been accused of
   having substituted for the dictatorships of the Soviets the
   dictatorship of the party. Yet it can be said with complete justice
   that the dictatorship of the Soviets became possible only be means of
   the dictatorship of the party. It is thanks to the . . . party . . .
   [that] the Soviets . . . [became] transformed from shapeless
   parliaments of labour into the apparatus of the supremacy of labour. In
   this 'substitution' of the power of the party for the power of the
   working class these is nothing accidental, and in reality there is no
   substitution at all. The Communists express the fundamental interests
   of the working class." [Terrorism and Communism, p. 109]

   In 1937 he continued this theme by arguing that "the proletariat can
   take power only through its vanguard." Thus, rather than the working
   class as a whole "seizing power", it is the "vanguard" which takes
   power -- "a revolutionary party, even after seizing power . . . is
   still by no means the sovereign ruler of society." He mocked the
   anarchist idea that a socialist revolution should be based on the
   self-management of workers within their own autonomous class
   organisations:

     "Those who propose the abstraction of Soviets to the party
     dictatorship should understand that only thanks to the party
     dictatorship were the Soviets able to lift themselves out of the mud
     of reformism and attain the state form of the proletariat."
     [Stalinism and Bolshevism]

   As can be seen, over a 17 year period Trotsky argued that it was the
   party which ruled, not the councils. The workers' councils became
   little more than rubber-stamps for the Bolshevik government (and not
   even that, as the central government only submitted a fraction of its
   decrees to the Central Executive of the national soviet, and that
   soviet was not even in permanent session). As Russian Anarchist Voline
   made clear "for, the anarchists declared, if 'power' really should
   belong to the soviets, it could not belong to the Bolshevik Party, and
   if it should belong to that Party, as the Bolsheviks envisaged, it
   could not belong to the soviets." [The Unknown Revolution, p. 213] In
   the words of Kropotkin:

     "The idea of soviets . . . councils of workers and peasants . . .
     controlling the economic and political life of the country is a
     great idea. All the more so, since it is necessarily follows that
     these councils should be composed of all who take part in the real
     production of national wealth by their own efforts.

     "But as long as the country is governed by a party dictatorship, the
     workers' and peasants' councils evidently lose their entire
     significance. They are reduced to the passive rule formerly played
     by the 'States General,' when they were convoked by the king and had
     to combat an all-powerful royal council."
     [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, pp. 254-5]

   In other words, the workers' councils took power in name only. Real
   power rested with the central government and the workers' councils
   become little more than a means to elect the government. Rather than
   manage society directly, the soviets simply became a transmission belt
   for the decrees and orders of the Bolshevik party. Hardly a system to
   inspire anyone.

   However, the history of the Russian Revolution has two important
   lessons for members of the various anti-globalisation and
   anti-capitalist groups. Firstly, as we noted in [2]section 1, is
   usually miles behind the class struggle and the ideas developed in it.
   As another example, we can point to the movement for workers' control
   and self-management that developed around the factory committees during
   the summer of 1917. It was the workers themselves, not the Bolshevik
   Party, which raised the issue of workers' self-management and control
   during the Russian Revolution. As historian S.A. Smith correctly
   summarises, the "factory committees launched the slogan of workers'
   control of production quite independently of the Bolshevik party. It
   was not until May that the party began to take it up." [Red Petrograd,
   p. 154] Given that the defining aspect of capitalism is wage labour,
   the Russian workers' raised a clearly socialist demand that entailed
   its abolition. It was the Bolshevik party, we must note, who failed to
   raise above a "trade union conscious" in this and so many other cases.

   Therefore, rather than being at the forefront of struggle and ideas,
   the Bolsheviks were, in fact, busy trying to catch up. History has
   repeated itself in the anti-capitalist demonstrations We should point
   out that anarchists have supported the idea of workers' self-management
   of production since 1840 and, unsurprisingly enough, were extremely
   active in the factory committee movement in 1917.

   The second lesson to be gained from the Russian Revolution is that
   while the Bolsheviks happily (and opportunistically) took over popular
   slogans and introduced them into their rhetoric, they rarely meant the
   same thing to the Bolsheviks as they did to the masses. For example, as
   noted above, the Bolsheviks took up the slogan "All Power to the
   Soviets" but rather than mean that the Soviets would manage society
   directly they actually meant the Soviets would delegate their power to
   a Bolshevik government which would govern society in their name.
   Similarly with the term "workers' control of production." As S.A. Smith
   correctly notes, Lenin used "the term ['workers' control'] in a very
   different sense from that of the factory committees." In fact Lenin's
   "proposals . . . [were] thoroughly statist and centralist in character,
   whereas the practice of the factory committees was essentially local
   and autonomous." [Op. Cit., p. 154] Once in power, the Bolsheviks
   systematically undermined the popular meaning of workers' control and
   replaced it with their own, statist conception. This ultimately
   resulted in the introduction of "one-man management" (with the manager
   appointed from above by the state). This process is documented in
   Maurice Brinton's The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, who also
   indicates the clear links between Bolshevik practice and Bolshevik
   ideology as well as how both differed from popular activity and ideas.

   Hence the comments by Russian Anarchist Peter Arshinov:

     "Another no less important peculiarity is that [the] October
     [revolution of 1917] has two meanings -- that which the working'
     masses who participated in the social revolution gave it, and with
     them the Anarchist-Communists, and that which was given it by the
     political party [the Marxist-Communists] that captured power from
     this aspiration to social revolution, and which betrayed and stifled
     all further development. An enormous gulf exists between these two
     interpretations of October. The October of the workers and peasants
     is the suppression of the power of the parasite classes in the name
     of equality and self-management. The Bolshevik October is the
     conquest of power by the party of the revolutionary intelligentsia,
     the installation of its 'State Socialism' and of its 'socialist'
     methods of governing the masses." [The Two Octobers]

   The members of the "anti-capitalist" movements should bear that in mind
   when the SWP uses the same rhetoric as they do. Appearances are always
   deceptive when it comes to Leninists. The history of the Russian
   Revolution indicates that while Leninists like the SWP can use the same
   words as popular movements, their interpretation of them can differ
   drastically.

   Take, for example, the expression "anti-capitalist." The SWP will claim
   that they, too, are "anti-capitalist" but, in fact, they are only
   opposed to "free market" capitalism and actually support state
   capitalism. Lenin, for example, argued that workers' must
   "unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of labour" in
   April 1918 along with granting "individual executives dictatorial power
   (or 'unlimited' powers)" and that "the appointment of individuals,
   dictators with unlimited powers" was, in fact, "in general compatible
   with the fundamental principles of Soviet government" simply because
   "the history of revolutionary movements" had "shown" that "the
   dictatorship of individuals was very often the expression, the vehicle,
   the channel of the dictatorship of revolutionary classes." He notes
   that "[u]ndoubtably, the dictatorship of individuals was compatible
   with bourgeois democracy." [The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet
   Government, p. 34 and p. 32]

   He confused state capitalism with socialism. "State capitalism," he
   wrote, "is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold
   of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the
   rung called socialism there are no gaps." [Collected Works, vol. 24, p.
   259] He argued that socialism "is nothing but the next step forward
   from state capitalist monopoly. In other words, Socialism is merely
   state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people; by this
   token it ceases to be capitalist monopoly." [The Threatening
   Catastrophe and how to avoid it, p. 37]

   As Peter Arshinov argued, a "fundamental fact" of the Bolshevik
   revolution was "that the workers and the peasant labourers remained
   within the earlier situation of 'working classes' -- producers managed
   by authority from above." He stressed that Bolshevik political and
   economic ideas may have "remov[ed] the workers from the hands of
   individual capitalists" but they "delivered them to the yet more
   rapacious hands of a single ever-present capitalist boss, the State.
   The relations between the workers and this new boss are the same as
   earlier relations between labour and capital . . . Wage labour has
   remained what it was before, expect that it has taken on the character
   of an obligation to the State. . . . It is clear that in all this we
   are dealing with a simple substitution of State capitalism for private
   capitalism." [The History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 35 and p. 71]
   Therefore, looking at Bolshevism in power and in theory it is clear
   that it is not, in fact, "anti-capitalist" but rather in favour of
   state capitalism and any appropriation of popular slogans was always
   under the firm understanding that the Bolshevik interpretation of these
   ideas is what will be introduced.

   Therefore the SWP's attempt to re-write Russian History. The actual
   events of the Russian Revolution indicate well the authoritarian and
   state-capitalist nature of Leninist politics.

9. How do the SWP re-write the history of the Spanish Revolution?

   The SWP, after re-writing Russian history, move onto Spanish history:

     "It did not happen in Spain in 1936. The C.N.T., a trade union
     heavily influenced by anarchist ideas, led a workers' uprising in
     the city of Barcelona that year. Workers' councils effectively ran
     the city.

     "But the capitalist state machine did not simply disappear. The
     government and its army, which was fighting against Franco's fascist
     forces, remained, although it had no authority in Barcelona.

     "The government even offered to hand power over to the leaders of
     the C.N.T. But the C.N.T. believed that any form of state was wrong.
     It turned down the possibility of forming a workers' state, which
     could have broken the fascists' coup and the capitalist state.

     "Worse, it accepted positions in a government that was dominated by
     pro-capitalist forces.

     "That government crushed workers' power in Barcelona, and in doing
     so fatally undermined the fight against fascism."

   It is hard to know where to start with this distortion of history.

   Firstly, we have to point out that the C.N.T. did lead a workers'
   uprising in 1936 but in was in response to a military coup and occurred
   all across Spain. The army was not "fighting against Franco's fascist
   forces" but rather had been the means by which Franco had tried to
   impose his version of fascism. Indeed, as the SWP know fine well, one
   of the first acts the CNT did in the Spanish Revolution was to organise
   workers' militias to go fight the army in those parts of Spain in which
   the unions (particularly the CNT which lead the fighting) did not
   defeat it by street fighting. Thus the C.N.T. faced the might of the
   Spanish army rising in a fascist coup. That, as we shall see,
   influenced its decisions.

   By not mentioning (indeed, lying about) the actual conditions the CNT
   faced in July 1936, the SWP ensure the reader cannot understand what
   happened and why the CNT made the decisions it did. Instead the reader
   is encouraged to think it was purely a result of anarchist theory.
   Needless to say, the SWP have a fit when it is suggested the actions of
   the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War were simply the result of
   Leninist ideology and unaffected by the circumstances they were made
   in. The logic is simple: the mistakes of Marxists are never their
   fault, never derive from Marxist politics and are always attributable
   to circumstances (regardless of the facts); the mistakes of anarchists,
   however, always derive from their politics and can never be explained
   by circumstances (regardless of counter-examples and those
   circumstances). Once this is understood, the reason why the SWP
   distorted the history of the Spanish Revolution becomes clear.

   Secondly, anarchism does not think that the "capitalist state machine"
   will "simply disappear." Rather, anarchists think that (to quote
   Kropotkin) the revolution "must smash the State and replace it with the
   Federation [of workers' associations and communes] and it will act
   accordingly." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 259] In other words, the
   state does not disappear, it is destroyed and replaced with a new,
   libertarian, form of social structure. Thus the SWP misrepresents
   anarchist theory.

   Thirdly, yes, the Catalan government did offer to stand aside for the
   C.N.T. and the C.N.T. rejected the offer. Why? The SWP claim that "the
   C.N.T. believed that any form of state was wrong" and that is why it
   did not take power. That is true, but what the SWP fail to mention is
   more important. The C.N.T. refused to implement libertarian communism
   after the defeat of the army uprising in July 1936 simply because it
   did not want to be isolated nor have to fight the republican government
   as well as the fascists (needless to say, such a decision, while
   understandable, was wrong). But such historical information would
   confuse the reader with facts and make their case against anarchism
   less clear-cut.

   Ironically the SWP's attack on the CNT indicates well the authoritarian
   basis of its politics and its support of soviets simply as a means for
   the party leaders to take power. After all, they obviously consider it
   a mistake for the "leaders of the CNT" to refuse power. Trotsky made
   the same point, arguing that:

     "A revolutionary party, even having seized power (of which the
     anarchist leaders were incapable in spite of the heroism of the
     anarchist workers), is still by no means the sovereign ruler of
     society." [Stalinism and Bolshevism]

   Yet the SWP say they, and their political tradition, are for "workers'
   power" yet, in practice, they clearly mean that power will be seized,
   held and exercised by the workers' leaders. A strange definition of
   "workers' power," we must admit but one that indicates well the
   differences between anarchists and Marxists. The former aim for a
   society based on workers' self-management. The latter desire a society
   in which workers' delegate their power to control society (i.e. their
   own lives) to the "leaders," to the "workers' party" who will govern on
   their behalf. The "leaders" of the CNT quite rightly rejected such this
   position -- unfortunately they also rejected the anarchist position at
   the same time and decided to ignore their politics in favour of
   collaborating with other anti-fascist unions and parties against
   Franco.

   Simply put, either the workers' have the power or the leaders do. To
   confuse the rule of the party with workers' self-management of society
   lays the basis for party dictatorship (as happened in Russia). Sadly,
   the SWP do exactly this and fail to learn the lessons of the Russian
   Revolution.

   Therefore, the SWP's argument against anarchism is logically flawed.
   Yes, the CNT did not take state power. However, neither did it destroy
   the state, as anarchist theory argues. Rather it ignored the state and
   this was its undoing. Thus the SWP attacks anarchism for anarchists
   failing to act in an anarchist manner! How strange.

   One last point. The events of the Spanish Revolution are important in
   another way for evaluating anarchism and Marxism. Faced with the
   military coup, the Spanish government did nothing, even refusing to
   distribute arms to the workers. The workers, however, took the
   initiative, seized arms by direct action and took to the streets to
   confront the army. Indeed, the dynamic response of the CNT members to
   Franco's coup compared to the inaction of the Marxist inspired German
   workers movement faced with Hitler's taking of power presents us with
   another example of the benefits of federalism against centralism, of
   anarchism against Marxism. The federal structure of the CNT had
   accustomed its members to act for themselves, to show initiative and
   act without waiting for orders from the centre. The centralised German
   system did the opposite.

   The SWP will argue, of course, that the workers were mislead by their
   leaders ("who were only Marxists in name only"). The question then
   becomes: why did they not act for themselves? Perhaps because the
   centralised German workers' movement had eroded their members
   initiative, self-reliance and spirit of revolt to such a degree that
   they could no longer act without their leaders instructions? It may be
   argued that with better leaders the German workers would have stopped
   the Nazis, but such a plea fails to understand why better leaders did
   not exist in the first place. A centralised movement inevitably
   produces bureaucracy and a tendency for leaders to become conservative
   and compromised.

   All in all, rather than refute anarchism the experience of the Spanish
   Revolution confirms it. The state needs to be destroyed, not ignored or
   collaborated with, and replaced by a federation of workers' councils
   organised from the bottom-up. By failing to do this, the CNT did ensure
   the defeat of the revolution but it hardly indicates a failure of
   anarchism. Rather it indicates a failure of anarchists who made the
   wrong decision in extremely difficult circumstances.

   Obviously it is impossible to discuss the question of the C.N.T. during
   the Spanish Revolution in depth here. We address the issue of Marxist
   interpretations of Spanish Anarchist history in the appendix
   [3]"Marxism and Spanish Anarchism." [4]Section 20 of that appendix
   discusses the C.N.T.'s decision to collaborate with the Republican
   State against Franco as well as its implications for anarchism.

10. Do anarchists ignore the fact that ideas change through struggle?

   The SWP try and generalise from these experiences:

     "In different ways, the lessons of Russia and Spain are the same.
     The organisational questions thrown up in particular struggles are
     critical when it comes to the working class challenging capitalism.

     "Workers face conflicting pressures. On the one hand, they are
     forced to compete in the labour market. They feel powerless, as an
     individual, against the boss.

     "That is why workers can accept the bosses' view of the world. At
     the same time constant attacks on workers' conditions create a need
     for workers to unite and fight back together.

     "These two pressures mean workers' ideas are uneven. Some see
     through the bosses' lies. Others can be largely taken in. Most part
     accept and part reject capitalist ideas. The overall consciousness
     of the working class is always shifting. People become involved in
     struggles which lead them to break with pro-capitalist ideas."

   That is very true and anarchists are well aware of it. That is why
   anarchists organise groups, produce propaganda, argue their ideas with
   others and encourage direct action and solidarity. We do so because we
   are aware that the ideas within society are mixed and that struggle
   leads people to break with pro-capitalist ideas. To quote Bakunin:

     "the germs of [socialist thought] . . . [are to] be found in the
     instinct of every earnest worker. The goal . . . is to make the
     worker fully aware of what he wants, to unjam within him a stream of
     thought corresponding to his instinct . . . What impedes the swifter
     development of this salutary though among the working masses? Their
     ignorance to be sure, that is, for the most part the political and
     religious prejudices with which self-interested classes still try to
     obscure their conscious and their natural instinct. How can we
     dispel this ignorance and destroy these harmful prejudices? By
     education and propaganda? . . . they are insufficient . . . [and]
     who will conduct this propaganda? . . . [The] workers' world . . .
     is left with but a single path, that of emancipation through
     practical action . . . It means workers' solidarity in their
     struggle against the bosses. It means trade-unions, organisation . .
     . To deliver [the worker] from that ignorance [of reactionary
     ideas], the International relies on collective experience he gains
     in its bosom, especially on the progress of the collective struggle
     of the workers against the bosses . . . As soon as he begins to take
     an active part in this wholly material struggle, . . . Socialism
     replaces religion in his mind. . . through practice and collective
     experience . . . the progressive and development of the economic
     struggle will bring him more and more to recognise his true enemies
     . . . The workers thus enlisted in the struggle will necessarily . .
     . recognise himself to be a revolutionary socialist, and he will act
     as one." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 102-3]

   Therefore anarchists are well aware of the importance of struggle and
   propaganda in winning people to anarchist ideas. No anarchist has ever
   argued otherwise.

11. Why do anarchists oppose the Leninist "revolutionary party"?

   The SWP argue that:

     "So there is always a battle of ideas within the working class. That
     is why political organisation is crucial. Socialists seek to build a
     revolutionary party not only to try to spread the lessons from one
     struggle to another.

     "They also want to organise those people who most clearly reject
     capitalism into a force that can fight for their ideas inside the
     working class as a whole. Such a party is democratic because its
     members constantly debate what is happening in today's struggles and
     the lessons that can be applied from past ones."

   That, in itself, is something most anarchists would agree with. That is
   why they build specific anarchist organisations which discuss and
   debate politics, current struggles, past struggles and revolutions and
   so on. In Britain there are three national anarchist federations (the
   Anarchist Federation, the Solidarity Federation and the Class War
   Federation) as well as numerous local groups and regional federations.
   The aim of these organisations is to try and influence the class
   struggle towards anarchist ideas (and, equally important, learn from
   that struggle as well -- the "program of the Alliance [Bakunin's
   anarchist group], expanded to keep pace with developing situations."
   [Bakunin, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 406]). The need for a specific
   political organisation is one most anarchists would agree with.

   Thus few anarchists are believers in spontaneous revolution and see the
   need for anarchists to organise as anarchists to spread anarchist ideas
   and push the struggle towards anarchist ends (smashing the state and
   capitalism and the creation of a free federation of workers' councils
   and communes) via anarchist tactics (direct action, solidarity, general
   strikes, insurrection and encouraging working class self-organisation
   and self-management). Hence the need for specific anarchist
   organisations:

     "The Alliance [Bakunin's anarchist group] is the necessary
     complement to the International [the revolutionary workers'
     movement]. But the International and the Alliance, while having the
     same ultimate aims, perform different functions. The International
     endeavours to unify the working masses . . . regardless of
     nationality and national boundaries or religious and political
     beliefs, into one compact body; the Alliance . . . tries to give
     these masses a really revolutionary direction. The programs of one
     and the other, without being opposed, differ in the degree of their
     revolutionary development. The International contains in germ, but
     only in germ, the whole program of the Alliance. The program of the
     Alliance represents the fullest unfolding of the International."
     [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 157]

   However, anarchists also argue that the revolutionary organisation must
   also reflect the type of society we want. Hence an anarchist federation
   must be self-organised from below, rejecting hierarchy and embracing
   self-management. For anarchists an organisation is not democratic
   because it debates, as the SWP claims. It is democratic only if the
   membership actually decides the policy of the organisation. That the
   SWP fail to mention this is significant and places doubt on whether
   their organisation is democratic in fact (as we indicate in [5]section
   22, the SWP may debate but it is not democratic). The reason why
   democracy in the SWP may not be all that it should be can be found in
   their comment that:

     "It is also centralised, as it arrives at decisions which everyone
     acts on."

   However, this is not centralisation. Centralisation is when the centre
   decides everything and the membership follow those orders. That the
   membership may be in a position to elect those at the centre does not
   change the fact that the membership is simply expected to follow
   orders. It is the organisational principle of the army or police, not
   of a free society. That this is the principle of Leninism can be seen
   from Trotsky's comment that the "statues [of the party] should express
   the leadership's organised distrust of the members, a distrust
   manifesting itself in vigilant control from above over the Party."
   [quoted by M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. xi] Thus
   the centre controls the membership, not vice versa.

   In What is to be Done? Lenin discussed "the confusion of ideas
   concerning the meaning of democracy." He dismisses the idea of
   self-management as "Primitive Democracy." He uses the example of the
   early British unions, where workers "thought that it was an
   indispensable sign of democracy for all the members to do all the work
   of managing the unions; not only were all questions decided by the vote
   of all the members, but all the official duties were fulfilled by all
   the members in turn." He considered "such a conception of democracy" as
   "absurd" and saw it as historical necessity that it was replaced by
   "representative institutions" and "full-time officials". [Essential
   Works of Lenin, pp. 162-3] In other words, the Leninist tradition
   rejects self-management in favour of hierarchical structures in which
   power is centralised in the hands of "full-time officials" and
   "representative institutions."

   In contrast, Bakunin argued that trade unions which ended "primitive
   democracy" and replaced it with representative institutions became
   bureaucratic and "simply left all decision-making to their committees .
   . . In this manner power gravitated to the committees, and by a species
   of fiction characteristic of all governments the committees substituted
   their own will and their own ideas for that of the membership." The
   membership become subject to "the arbitrary power" of the committees
   and "ruled by oligarchs." In other words, bureaucracy set in and
   democracy as such was eliminated and while "very good for the
   committees . . . [it was] not at all favourable for the social,
   intellectual, and moral progress of the collective power" of the
   workers' movement. [Bakunin on Anarchism, pp. 246-7] Who was correct
   can quickly be seen from the radical and pro-active nature of the
   British trade union leadership. Ironically, the SWP always bemoan trade
   union bureaucracies betraying workers in struggle yet promote an
   organisational structure that ensures that power flows to the centre
   and into the hands of bureaucrats.

   At best, Leninism reduces "democracy" to mean that the majority
   designates its rulers, copied from the model of bourgeois parliamentary
   democracy. In practice it is drained of any real meaning and quickly
   becomes a veil thrown over the unlimited power of the rulers. The base
   does not run the organisation just because once a year it elects
   delegates who designate the central committee, no more than the people
   are sovereign in a parliamentary-type republic because they
   periodically elect deputies who designate the government. That the
   central committee is designated by a "democratically elected" congress
   makes no difference once it is elected, it is de facto and de jure the
   absolute ruler of the organisation. It has complete (statutory) control
   over the body of the Party (and can dissolve the base organisations,
   kick out militants, etc.).

   Therefore it is ironic that the SWP promote themselves as supporters of
   democracy as it is anarchists who support the "primitive democracy"
   (self-management) contemptuously dismissed by Lenin. With their calls
   for centralisation, it is clear that SWP still follow Lenin, wishing to
   place decision-making at the centre of the organisation, in the hands
   of leaders, in the same way the police, army and bureaucratic trade
   unions do. Anarchists reject this vision as non-socialist and instead
   argue for the fullest participation in decision making by those subject
   to those decisions. Only in this way can government -- inequality in
   power -- be eliminated from society.

   Just to stress the point, anarchists are not opposed to people making
   decisions and everyone who took part in making the decision acting on
   them. Such a system is not "centralised," however, when the decisions
   flow from the bottom-up and are made by mandated delegates, accountable
   to the people who mandated them. It is centralised when it is decided
   upon by the leadership and imposed upon the membership. Thus the issue
   is not whether we organise or not organise, nor whether we co-ordinate
   joint activity or not, it is a question of how we organise and
   co-ordinate -- from the bottom up or from the top down. As Bakunin
   argued:

     "Discipline, mutual trust as well as unity are all excellent
     qualities when properly understood and practised, but disastrous
     when abused . . . [one use of the word] discipline almost always
     signifies despotism on the one hand and blind automatic submission
     to authority on the other. . .

     "Hostile as I am to [this,] the authoritarian conception of
     discipline, I nevertheless recognise that a certain kind of
     discipline, not automatic but voluntary and intelligently understood
     is, and will ever be, necessary whenever a greater number of
     individuals undertake any kind of collective work or action. Under
     these circumstances, discipline is simply the voluntary and
     considered co-ordination of all individual efforts for a common
     purpose. At the moment of revolution, in the midst of the struggle,
     there is a natural division of functions according to the aptitude
     of each, assessed and judged by the collective whole. . .

     "In such a system, power, properly speaking, no longer exists. Power
     is diffused to the collectivity and becomes the true expression of
     the liberty of everyone, the faithful and sincere realisation of the
     will of all . . . this is the only true discipline, the discipline
     necessary for the organisation of freedom. This is not the kind of
     discipline preached by the State . . . which wants the old,
     routine-like, automatic blind discipline. Passive discipline is the
     foundation of every despotism."
     [Bakunin on Anarchism, pp. 414-5]

   Therefore, anarchists see the need to make agreements, to stick by them
   and to show discipline but we argue that this must be to the agreements
   we helped to make and subject to our judgement. We reject
   "centralisation" as it confuses the necessity of agreement with
   hierarchical power, of solidarity and agreement from below with unity
   imposed from above as well as the need for discipline with following
   orders.

12. Why do the SWP make a polemical fetish of "unity" and "democracy" to the
expense of common sense and freedom?

   The SWP argue that "unity" is essential:

     "Without unity around decisions there would be no democracy -
     minorities would simply ignore majority decisions."

   Anarchists are in favour of free agreement and so argue that minorities
   should, in general, go along with the majority decisions of the groups
   and federations they are members of. That is, after all, the point
   behind federalism -- to co-ordinate activity. Minorities can, after
   all, leave an association. As Malatesta argued, "anarchists recognise
   that where life is lived in common it is often necessary for the
   minority to come to accept the opinion of the majority. When there is
   an obvious need or usefulness in doing something and, to do it requires
   the agreement of all, the few should feel the need adapt to the wishes
   of the many." [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 100] The Spanish C.N.T.
   argued in its vision of Libertarian Communism that:

     "Communes are to be autonomous and will be federated at regional and
     national levels for the purpose of achieving goals of a general
     nature. . . . communes . . . will undertake to adhere to whatever
     general norms [that] may be majority vote after free debate. . . The
     inhabitants of a Commune are to debate their internal problems . . .
     among themselves. Whenever problems affecting an entire comarca
     [district] or province are involved, it must be the Federations [of
     communes] who deliberate and at every reunion or assembly these may
     hold all of the Communes are to be represented and their delegates
     will relay the viewpoints previously approved in their respective
     Communes . . . On matters of a regional nature, it will be up to the
     Regional Federation to put agreements into practice and these
     agreements will represent the sovereign will of all the region's
     inhabitants. So the starting point is the individual, moving on
     through the Commune, to the Federation and right on up finally to
     the Confederation." [quoted by Jose Pierats, The C.N.T. in the
     Spanish Revolution, pp. 68-9]

   Therefore, as a general rule-of-thumb, anarchists have little problem
   with the minority accepting the decisions of the majority after a
   process of free debate and discussion. As we argue in [6]section
   A.2.11, such collective decision making is compatible with anarchist
   principles -- indeed, is based on them. By governing ourselves
   directly, we exclude others governing us. However, we do not make a
   fetish of this, recognising that, in certain circumstances, the
   minority must and should ignore majority decisions. For example, if the
   majority of an organisation decide on a policy which the minority
   thinks is disastrous then why should they follow the majority? In 1914,
   the representatives of the German Social Democratic Party voted for war
   credits. The anti-war minority of that group went along with the
   majority in the name of "democracy," "unity" and "discipline". Would
   the SWP argue that they were right to do so? Similarly, if a majority
   of a community decided, say, that homosexuals were to be arrested,
   would the SWP argue that minorities must not ignore that decision? We
   hope not.

   In general, anarchists would argue that a minority should ignore the
   majority when their decisions violate the fundamental ideas which the
   organisation or association are built on. In other words, if the
   majority violates the ideals of liberty, equality and solidarity then
   the minority can and should reject the decisions of the majority. So, a
   decision of the majority that violates the liberty of a non-oppressive
   minority -- say, restricting their freedom of association -- then
   minorities can and should ignore the decisions and practice civil
   disobedience to change that decision. Similarly, if a decision violates
   the solidarity and the feelings of equality which should inform
   decisions, then, again, the minority should reject the decision. We
   cannot accept majority decisions without question simply because the
   majority can be wrong. Unless the minority can judge the decisions of
   the majority and can reject them then they are slaves of the majority
   and the equality essential for a socialist society is eliminated in
   favour of mere obedience.

   However, if the actions of the majority are simply considered to be
   disastrous but breaking the agreement would weaken the actions of the
   majority, then solidarity should be the overwhelming consideration. As
   Malatesta argued, "[t]here are matters over which it is worth accepting
   the will of the majority because the damage caused by a split would be
   greater than that caused by error; there are circumstances in which
   discipline becomes a duty because to fail in it would be to fail in the
   solidarity between the oppressed and would mean betrayal in face of the
   enemy . . . What is essential is that individuals should develop a
   sense of organisation and solidarity, and the conviction that fraternal
   co-operation is necessary to fight oppression and to achieve a society
   in which everyone will be able to enjoy his [or her] own life." [Life
   and Ideas, pp. 132-3]

   He stresses the point:

     "But such an adaptation [of the minority to the decisions of the
     majority] on the one hand by one group must be reciprocal, voluntary
     and must stem from an awareness of need and of goodwill to prevent
     the running of social affairs from being paralysed by obstinacy. It
     cannot be imposed as a principle and statutory norm. . .

     "So . . . anarchists deny the right of the majority to govern in
     human society in general . . . how is it possible . . . to declare
     that anarchists should submit to the decisions of the majority
     before they have even heard what those might be?"
     [The Anarchist Revolution, pp. 100-1]

   Therefore, while accepting majority decision making as a key aspect of
   a revolutionary movement and a free society, anarchists do not make a
   fetish of it. We recognise that we must use our own judgement in
   evaluating each decision reached simply because the majority is not
   always right. We must balance the need for solidarity in the common
   struggle and needs of common life with critical analysis and judgement.

   Needless to say, our arguments apply with even more force to the
   decisions of the representatives of the majority, who are in practice a
   very small minority. Leninists usually try and confuse these two
   distinct forms of decision making. When groups like the SWP discuss
   majority decision making they almost always mean the decisions of those
   elected by the majority -- the central committee or the government --
   rather than the majority of the masses or an organisation.

   So, in practice the SWP argue that the majority of an organisation
   cannot be consulted on every issue and so what they actually mean is
   that the decisions of the central committee (or government) should be
   followed at all times. In other words, the decisions of a minority (the
   leaders) should be obeyed by the majority. A minority owns and controls
   the "revolutionary" organisation and "democracy" is quickly turned into
   its opposite. Very "democratic."

   As we shall indicate in the next two sections, the SWP do not, in fact,
   actually follow their own arguments. They are quite happy for
   minorities to ignore majority decisions -- as long as the minority in
   question is the leadership of their own parties. As we argue in
   [7]section 14, such activities flow naturally from the vanguardist
   politics of Leninism and should not come as a surprise.

13. How does the Battle of Prague expose the SWP as hypocrites?

   To evaluate the sincerity of the SWP's proclaimed commitment to
   "democracy" and "centralism" we just have to look at the actions of
   their contingent at the demonstration against the WTO and IMF in Prague
   on September 26th, 2000.

   Let us recall that on September 16th, the SWP had argued as follows:

     "It is no good people coming together in a struggle, discussing what
     to do and then doing just what they feel like as if no discussion
     had taken place."

   They stressed that importance of "centralisation" which they defined as
   "arriv[ing] at decisions which everyone acts on. Without unity around
   decisions there would be no democracy -- minorities would simply ignore
   majority decisions."

   In practice, the International Socialist (IS) section of the Prague
   demonstration (the SWP and its sister parties) totally ignored their
   own arguments. Instead of ending up in the Pink sector (for which they
   had put themselves down) they somehow ended up behind "Ya Basta" in the
   yellow sector. As they were at the front of the march this should have
   been impossible. It turns out they deliberately entered the wrong
   sector because they refused to accept the agreed plan to split the
   march in three.

   The protests had been co-ordinated by INPEG. INPEG was established as a
   democratic implement of communication and co-ordination among
   individuals and groups which want to protest against the annual summit
   of IMF in Prague on September 2000. It included a variety groups -- for
   instance reformists (e.g. NESEHNUTI), anarchists (e.g. CSAF or
   Solidarity) and Leninists (i.e. Socialist Solidarity, sister
   organisation of the British SWP). The IS group had argued at INPEG
   committee meetings earlier in the year for a single march on the centre
   (which of course could not have shut the conference down). They failed
   to win this argument and so had betrayed the rest of the protesters on
   the day by simply marching directly onto the bridge themselves (in the
   yellow sector) instead of continuing into the Pink sector as they were
   supposed to.

   Why did the SWP do what they did? Presumably they put themselves down
   for the Pink section because it was at the front of the march and so
   offered the best media coverage for their placards and banners.
   Similarly, they joined the Yellow Section because it was marching
   directly to the conference centre and not, like Pink, going round to
   the rear and so, again, offered the best media coverage. In other
   words, they "did their own thing", ignored the agreements they made and
   weakened the protests simply to look the dominant group in the press.
   Ironically, the Czech media made sure that the Leninist parties got
   onto their front pages simply because many of them chose to march in
   Prague with red flags emblazoned with hammer and sickles. Flags
   associated with the Soviet occupation and the old regime are hardly
   "popular" and so useful to smear the protests.

   The decision of the SWP to ignore the agreed plan was applauded by
   other Leninists. According to the post-Prague issue of the Communist
   Party of Great Britain's paper Weekly Worker:

     "Farcically, the organisers had decided to split the march into
     three, each with its own route and composition -- blue (anarchist),
     pink (trade unions and left organisations) and yellow (NGOs and
     Jubilee 2000). Ostensibly, this started as a tactic designed to
     facilitate forming a human chain around the conference centre,
     although by the day of the action this aim had, apparently, been
     abandoned. Whether these truly stupid arrangements had been accepted
     beforehand by all on the INPEG (Initiative Against Economic
     Globalisation) remains hazy, given the paucity of information about
     the debates and differences on this self-appointed body."

   The splitting of the march into three, as a matter of fact, was a great
   success. It allowed the demonstrators to encircle the conference
   centre. The marches splitting off from the back working beautifully,
   catching the police and media by surprise who were clustered at the
   front of the march (indeed, the police later admitted that they had
   been caught off guard by the splitting of the march). From the
   splitting points to the centre the marches were unaccompanied by both
   police and media. A clear victory. Indeed, what would have been "truly
   stupid" was doing what the police had expected (and SWP wanted) -- to
   have one big march.

   How was the demonstration's organised? According to eye-witness
   Katharine Viner (writing in The Guardian on Friday September 29, 2000):

     "In the run-up to Tuesday's demonstration I attended the convergence
     centre, where 'spokes council' meetings took place, and found the
     sense of community and organisation there astonishing and moving.
     Every 'affinity group' - NGO or group of friends - sent a
     spokesperson to meetings to make decisions and work out strategy. It
     sounds impossible to contain, and it was laborious, but it worked
     and consensus was found. It felt like proper democracy in a way that
     the ballot box does not."

   Julie Light, of Corporate Watch, indicates the same process at work in
   her account entitled Spirits, Tensions Run High in Prague (dated
   September 25, 2000):

     "the activist coalition called the Initiative Against Economic
     Globalisation (INPEG) is training hundreds of people in civil
     disobedience at the Convergence Centre. The Centre, a converted
     warehouse space located under Prague's Libensky Bridge, serves as an
     information and strategy clearinghouse for the protesters. A 'spokes
     council' made up of representatives of dozens of groups makes
     decisions by consensus for this international ad-hoc coalition that
     has never worked together before. They have an elaborate system of
     hand signals to indicate their views as they discuss the details of
     the protests. Given the logistical obstacles, things seem to be
     running remarkably smoothly."

   Obviously "proper democracy" and a council of group spokespeople
   discussing the protests were not good enough for the SWP and other
   Leninist groups. Nor, of course, making an agreement and sticking to
   it.

   The Weekly Worker complements the SWP's decision:

     "Come the march itself, the damage was partially repaired by the
     decision of a majority of the 'pink' contingent (with the SWP and
     its international sections to the fore) to simply veer off the
     agreed route. This pink section then partially merged with the
     yellow to advance on the conference."

   We must point out that the International Socialist appear to have lied
   about the numbers they were bringing to Prague. The day before the
   demonstration they claimed they said they would contribute 2,500 to the
   Pink section -- since then their own press has reported 1,000 in their
   delegation (Socialist Worker no. 1716 stated that the "day began when
   over 1,000 marched from the Florenc bus station . . .led by supporters
   of Socialist Worker and its sister papers elsewhere in Europe"). This
   would have left the Pink block seriously under strength even if they
   had not unilaterally left their block.

   Their defection from the agreed plan had very serious repercussions on
   the day -- one gate in the Pink sector was never covered. In the Blue
   sector, where the anarchists were concentrated, this meant that at the
   height of a battle with hundreds of riot police, a water cannon and two
   Armoured Personnel Carriers they were forced to send 300 people on a 2
   km hike to attempt to close this gate. Shortly after they left a police
   charge broke the Blue Block lines leading to arrests and injuries.

   Thus, by ignoring the plan and doing their own thing, they not only
   made a mockery of their own arguments and the decision making process
   of the demonstration, weakened the protest and placed others in danger.

   And the net effect of their defection? As the Weekly Worker
   pathetically comments:

     "Of course, it was blocked by ranks of riot police . . ."

   As the bridge was a very narrow front this resulted in a huge amount of
   people stuck behind "Ya Basta!" with nothing to do except sit around.
   So the "International Socialists" and other Leninists who undertook the
   act of sabotage with them were stuck doing nothing behind "Ya Basta" at
   the bottom of the bridge (as would be expected -- indeed, this exposes
   another failing of centralism, its inability to know local
   circumstances, adapt to them and plan taking them into account). The
   tiny number of anarchists who marched around to cover their gate on the
   other hand, took the police by surprise and broke through to the
   conference centre until driven back by hundreds of riot police. Worse,
   there were some problems in the "Yellow Block" as the Leninists were
   pushing from behind and it took some serious explaining to get them to
   understand that they should stop it because otherwise people in the
   front line could be crushed to death. Moreover, they demanded to be
   allowed up alongside "Ya Basta" at the front, next to the riot cops,
   but when "Ya Basta" did pull out and invited the SWP to take their
   place in the front they refused to do so.

   Moreover, the actual result of the SWP's disgraceful actions in Prague
   also indicates the weakness of centralism. Having centrally decided to
   have one big march (regardless of what the others thought or the
   majority wished or agreed to) the decision was made with clearly no
   idea of the local geography otherwise they would have known that the
   front at the bridge would have been small. The net result of the
   "efficient" centralisation of the SWP? A mass of protestors stuck doing
   nothing due to a lack of understanding of local geography and the plan
   to blockade the conference seriously weakened. A federal organisation,
   on the other hand, would have had information from the local activists
   who would have been organising the protests and made their plans
   accordingly.

   Therefore, to summarise. Ten days after denouncing anarchism for
   refusing to accept majority decisions and for being against
   "centralisation" (i.e. making and keeping agreements), the SWP ignore
   majority decisions, break agreements and do their own thing. Not only
   that, they weaken the demonstration and place their fellow protestors
   in difficulties simply so they could do nothing someplace else as,
   unsurprisingly enough, their way was blocked by riot cops. An amazing
   example of "democratic centralism" in practice and sure to inspire us
   all to follow the path of Marxism-Leninism!

   The hypocrisy of their actions and arguments are clear. The question
   now arises, what do anarchists think of their action. As we argued in
   the [8]last section, while anarchists favour direct democracy
   (self-management) when making decisions we also accept that minorities
   can and should ignore a majority decision if that decision is
   considered to be truly disastrous. However, any such decision must be
   made based on evaluating the damage caused by so making it and whether
   it would be a violation of solidarity to do so. This is what the SWP
   clearly failed to do. Their decision not only made a mockery of their
   own argument, it failed to take into account solidarity with the rest
   of the demonstration.

   From an anarchist perspective, therefore, the SWP's decision and
   actions cannot be justified. They violated the basic principles of a
   revolutionary movement, the principles of liberty, equality and
   solidarity. They ignored the liberty of others by violating their
   agreements with them, they violated their equality by acting as if the
   other groups ideas and decisions did not matter and they violated
   solidarity by ignoring the needs of the common struggle and so placing
   their fellow demonstrators in danger. While anarchists do respect the
   rights of minorities to act as they see fit, we also recognise the
   importance of solidarity with our fellow workers and protestors. The
   SWP by failing to consider the needs of the common struggle sabotaged
   the demonstration and should be condemned not only as hypocrites but
   also as elitists -- the party is not subject to the same rules as other
   demonstrators, whose wishes are irrelevant when they conflict with the
   party. The implications for the SWP's proclaimed support for democracy
   is clear.

   So it appears that minorities can and should ignore agreements -- as
   long as the minority in question are the leaders of the SWP and its
   sister parties. They have exposed themselves as being hypocrites. Like
   their heroes, Lenin and Trotsky, they will ignore democratic decisions
   when it suits them (see [9]next section). This is sickening for
   numerous reasons -- it placed the rest of the demonstrators in danger,
   it weakened the demonstration itself and it shows that the SWP say one
   thing and do the exact opposite. They, and the political tradition they
   are part of, clearly are not to be trusted. The bulk of the membership
   went along with this betrayal like sheep. Hardly a good example of
   revolutionary consciousness. In fact it shows that the "revolutionary"
   discipline of the SWP is like that of the cops or army) and that SWP's
   centralised system is based on typically bourgeois notions. In other
   words, the organisational structure desired by the SWP does not
   encourage the autonomy, initiative or critical thinking of its members
   (as anarchists have long argued).

   Prague shows that their arguments for "centralisation" as necessary for
   "democracy" are hypocrisy and amount to little more than a call for
   domination by the SWP's leadership over the anti-capitalist movement --
   a call hidden begin the rhetoric of "democracy." As can be seen, in
   practice the SWP happily ignores democracy when it suits them. The
   party always comes first, regardless of what the people it claims to
   represent actually want. In this they follow the actions of the
   Bolsheviks in power (see [10]next section). Little wonder
   Marxism-Leninism is dying -- the difference between what they claim and
   what they do is becoming increasingly well know.

14. Is the Leninist tradition actually as democratic as the SWP like to claim?

   While the SWP attack anarchism for being undemocratic for being against
   "centralism" the truth is that the Leninist tradition is fundamentally
   undemocratic. Those, like the SWP, who are part of the Bolshevik
   tradition have no problem with minorities ignoring majority decisions
   -- as long as the minority in question is the leadership of the
   vanguard party. We discussed the example of the "battle of Prague" in
   the [11]last section, now we turn to Bolshevism in power during the
   Russian Revolution.

   For example, the Bolsheviks usually overthrew the results of provincial
   soviet elections that went against them [Samuel Farber, Before
   Stalinism, pp 22-24]. It was in the spring of 1918 that the Bolsheviks
   showed how little they really supported the soviets. As discontent grew
   soviet after soviet fell to Menshevik-SR blocs. To stay in power they
   had to destroy the soviets and they did. Opposition victories were
   followed by disbanding of the soviets and often martial law. [Vladimir
   Brovkin, "The Menshevik's Political Comeback: The elections to the
   provincial soviets in spring 1918", Russian Review no. 42 (1983), pp.
   1-50]

   In addition, the Bolsheviks abolished by decree soldiers' councils and
   the election of officers in the Red Army in favour of officers
   appointed from above (see [12]section 11 of the appendix [13]"Marxism
   and Spanish Anarchism" for details). They replaced self-managed factory
   committees with appointed, autocratic managers (see M. Brinton's The
   Bolsheviks and Workers Control or [14]section 17 of the appendix
   [15]"Marxism and Spanish Anarchism" for details). All this before the
   start of the Russian Civil War. Similarly, Lenin and Trotsky happily
   replaced the democratically elected leaders of trade unions with their
   followers when it suited them.

   As Trotsky argued in 1921, you cannot place "the workers' right to
   elect representatives above the party. As if the Party were not
   entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship clashed
   with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!" He continued by
   stating the "Party is obliged to maintain its dictatorship . . .
   regardless of temporary vacillations even in the working class . . .
   The dictatorship does not base itself at every moment on the formal
   principle of a workers' democracy." [quoted by M. Brinton, The
   Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 78]

   Of course, such a position follows naturally from Lenin's theory from
   What is to be Done? that "the working class, exclusively by their own
   effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness . . . The
   theory of socialism [i.e. Marxism], however, grew out of the
   philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by
   the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the
   intellectuals . . . the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose
   quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labour movement;
   it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of ideas among the
   revolutionary socialist intelligentsia." This meant that "Social
   Democratic [i.e. socialist] consciousness . . . could only be brought
   to them from without." [Essential Lenin, pp. 74-5]

   For Leninists, if the workers' act in ways opposed to by the party,
   then the party has the right to ignore, even repress, the workers --
   they simply do not (indeed, cannot) understand what is required of
   them. They cannot reach "socialist consciousness" by their own efforts
   -- indeed, their opinions can be dismissed as "there can be no talk of
   an independent ideology being developed by the masses of the workers in
   the process of their movement the only choice is: either bourgeois or
   socialist ideology . . . to belittle socialist ideology in any way, to
   deviate from it in the slightest degree means strengthening bourgeois
   ideology . . . the spontaneous development of the labour movement leads
   to it becoming subordinated to bourgeois ideology." [Op. Cit., p. 82]
   Given that the socialist ideology cannot be communicated without the
   vanguard party, this means that the party can ignore the wishes of the
   masses simply because such wishes must be influenced by "bourgeois"
   ideology. Thus Leninism contains within itself the justification for
   eliminating democracy within the revolution. From Lenin's arguments to
   Bolshevik actions during the revolution and Trotsky's assertions in
   1921 is only a matter of time -- and power.

   In other words, the SWP's "Battle of Ideas" becomes, once the vanguard
   is in power, just a battle:

     "Without revolutionary coercion directed against the avowed enemies
     of the workers and peasants, it is impossible to break down the
     resistance of these exploiters. On the other hand, revolutionary
     coercion is bound to be employed towards the wavering and unstable
     elements among the masses themselves." [Lenin, Collected Works, vol.
     24, p. 170]

   Significantly, of the 17 000 camp detainees on whom statistical
   information was available on 1 November 1920, peasants and workers
   constituted the largest groups, at 39% and 34% respectively. Similarly,
   of the 40 913 prisoners held in December 1921 (of whom 44% had been
   committed by the Cheka) nearly 84% were illiterate or minimally
   educated, clearly, therefore, either peasants of workers. [George
   Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police, p. 178] Needless to say,
   Lenin failed to mention this aspect of his system in The State and
   Revolution, as do the SWP in their article.

   It is hard to combine these facts and the SWP's comments with the claim
   that the "workers' state" is an instrument of class rule -- after all,
   Lenin is acknowledging that coercion will be exercised against members
   of the working class as well. The question of course arises -- who
   decides what a "wavering" or "unstable" element is? Given their
   comments on the role of the party and the need for the party to assume
   power, it will mean in practice whoever rejects the government's
   decisions (for example, strikers, local soviets which reject central
   decrees and instructions, workers who vote for anarchists or parties
   other than the Bolshevik party in elections to soviets, unions and so
   on, socialists and anarchists, etc.). Given a hierarchical system,
   Lenin's comment is simply a justification for state repression of its
   enemies (including elements within, or even the whole of, the working
   class).

   It could be argued, however, that workers could use the soviets to
   recall the government. However, this fails for two reasons.

   Firstly, the Leninist state will be highly centralised, with power
   flowing from the top-down. This means that in order to revoke the
   government, all the soviets in all parts of the country must, at the
   same time, recall their delegates and organise a national congress of
   soviets (which, we note, is not in permanent session). The local
   soviets are bound to carry out the commands of the central government
   (to quote the Soviet constitution of 1918 -- they are to "carry out all
   orders of the respective higher organs of the soviet power"). Any
   independence on their part would be considered "wavering" or an
   expression of "unstable" natures and so subject to "revolutionary
   coercion". In a highly centralised system, the means of accountability
   is reduced to the usual bourgeois level -- vote in the general election
   every few years (which, in any case, can be annulled by the government
   if its dislikes the "passing moods" expressed by them). As can be seen
   above, the Bolsheviks did disband soviets when they considered the
   wrong (i.e. "wavering" or "unstable") elements had been elected to them
   and so a highly centralised state system cannot be responsive to real
   control from below.

   Secondly, "revolutionary coercion" against "wavering" elements does not
   happen in isolation. It will encourage critical workers to keep quiet
   in case they, too, are deemed "unstable" and become subject to
   "revolutionary" coercion. As a government policy it can have no other
   effect than deterring democracy.

   Thus Leninist politics provides the rationale for eliminating even the
   limited role of soviets for electing the government they hold in that
   ideology. The Leninist conception of workers' councils is purely
   instrumental. In 1907, Lenin argued that:

     "the Party . . . has never renounced its intention of utilising
     certain non-party organisations, such as the Soviets of Workers'
     Deputies . . . to extend Social-Democratic influence among the
     working class and to strengthen the Social-Democratic labour
     movement . . . the incipient revival creates the opportunity to
     organise or utilise non-party working-class institutions, such as
     Soviets . . . for the purpose of developing the Social-Democratic
     movement; at the same time the Social-Democratic Party organisations
     must bear in mind if Social-Democratic activities among the
     proletarian masses are properly, effectively and widely organised,
     such institutions may actually become superfluous." [Marx, Engels
     and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, pp. 209-10]

   As can be seen from the experiences of Russia under Lenin, this
   perspective did not fundamentally change -- given a conflict between
   the councils and the party, the party always came first and soviets
   simply superfluous.

15. Why is the SWP's support for centralisation anti-socialist?

   The SWP continue:

     "Centralism is needed above all because the capitalist state is
     centralised. The police, media moguls, employers, the state
     bureaucracy and governments act in a concerted way to protect the
     system."

   Very true. However, the SWP fail to analyse why the state is
   centralised. Simply put, the state is centralised to facilitate
   minority rule by excluding the mass of people from taking part in the
   decision making processes within society. This is to be expected as
   social structures do not evolve by chance -- rather they develop to
   meet specific needs and requirements. The specific need of the ruling
   class is to rule and that means marginalising the bulk of the
   population. Its requirement is for minority power and this is
   transformed into the structure of the state and capitalist company. The
   SWP assume that centralisation is simply a tool without content.
   Rather, it is a tool that has been fashioned to do a specific job,
   namely to exclude the bulk of the population from the decision making
   process. It is designed that way and can have no other result. For that
   reason anarchists reject centralisation. As the justly famous
   Sonvillier Circular argued: "How could one expect an egalitarian
   society to emerge out of an authoritarian organisation? It is
   impossible." [quoted by Brian Morris, Bakunin: The Philosophy of
   Freedom, p. 61]

   Thus Rudolf Rocker:

     "For the state centralisation is the appropriate form of
     organisation, since it aims at the greatest possible uniformity in
     social life for the maintenance of political and social equilibrium.
     But for a movement whose very existence depends on prompt action at
     any favourable moment and on the independent thought and action of
     its supporters, centralism could but be a curse by weakening its
     power of decision and systematically repressing all immediate
     action. If, for example, as was the case in Germany, every local
     strike had first to be approved by the Central, which was often
     hundreds of miles away and was not usually in a position to pass a
     correct judgement on the local conditions, one cannot wonder that
     the inertia of the apparatus of organisation renders a quick attack
     quite impossible, and there thus arises a state of affairs where the
     energetic and intellectually alert groups no longer serve as
     patterns for the less active, but are condemned by these to
     inactivity, inevitably bringing the whole movement to stagnation.
     Organisation is, after all, only a means to an end. When it becomes
     an end in itself, it kills the spirit and the vital initiative of
     its members and sets up that domination by mediocrity which is the
     characteristic of all bureaucracies." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 54]

   Just as the capitalist state cannot be utilised by the working class
   for its own ends, capitalist/statist organisational principles such as
   appointment, autocratic management, centralisation and delegation of
   power and so on cannot be utilised for social liberation. They are not
   designed to be used for that purpose (and, indeed, they were developed
   in the first place to stop it and enforce minority rule!).

   The implication of the SWP's argument is that centralisation is
   required for co-ordinated activity. Anarchists disagree. Yes, there is
   a need for co-ordination and joint activity, but that must be created
   from below, in new ways that reflect the goals we are aiming for.
   During the Spanish Revolution anarchists organised militias to fight
   the fascists. One was lead by anarchist militant Durruti. His military
   adviser, Prez Farras, a professional soldier, was concerned about the
   application of libertarian principles to military organisation. Durruti
   replied:

     "I have already said and I repeat; during all my life, I have acted
     as an anarchist. The fact of having been given political
     responsibility for a human collective cannot change my convictions.
     It is under these conditions that I agreed to play the role given to
     me by the Central Committee of the Militias.

     "I thought -- and what has happened confirms my belief -- that a
     workingmen's militia cannot be led according to the same rules as an
     army. I think that discipline, co-ordination and the fulfilment of a
     plan are indispensable. But this idea can no longer be understood in
     the terms of the world we have just destroyed. We have new ideas. We
     think that solidarity among men must awaken personal responsibility,
     which knows how to accept discipline as an autonomous act.

     "Necessity imposes a war on us, a struggle that differs from many of
     those that we have carried on before. But the goal of our struggle
     is always the triumph of the revolution. This means not only victory
     over the enemy, but also a radical change in man. For this change to
     occur, man must learn to live in freedom and develop in himself his
     potentialities as a responsible individual. The worker in the
     factory, using his tools and directing production, is bringing about
     a change in himself. The fighter, like the worker, uses his gun as a
     tool and his acts must lead to the same goals as those of the
     worker.

     "In the struggle he cannot act like a soldier under orders but like
     a man who is conscious of what he is doing. I know it is not easy to
     get such a result, but what one cannot get by reason, one can never
     get through force. If our revolutionary army must be maintained
     through fear, we will have changed nothing but the colour of fear.
     It is only by freeing itself from fear that a free society can be
     built."
     [quoted by Abel Paz, Durruti: The People Armed, p. 224]

   Durruti's words effectively refute the SWP's flawed argument. We need
   to organise, co-ordinate, co-operate our activities but we cannot do so
   in bourgeois ways. We need to discover new ways, based on libertarian
   ideas and not capitalist ones like centralisation.

   Indeed, this conflict between the Leninist support for traditional
   forms of organisational structure and the new forms produced by workers
   in struggle came into conflict during the Russian Revolution. One such
   area of conflict was the factory committee movement and its attempts at
   workers' self-management of production. As historian A.S. Smith
   summarises:

     "Implicit in the movement for workers' control was a belief that
     capitalist methods cannot be used for socialist ends. In their
     battle to democratise the factory, in their emphasis on the
     importance of collective initiatives by the direct producers in
     transforming the work situation, the factory committees had become
     aware -- in a partial and groping way, to be sure -- that factories
     are not merely sites of production, but also of reproduction -- the
     reproduction of a certain structure of social relations based on the
     division between those who give orders and those who take them,
     between those who direct and those who execute . . . inscribed
     within their practice was a distinctive vision of socialism, central
     to which was workplace democracy.

     "Lenin believed that socialism could be built only on the basis of
     large-scale industry as developed by capitalism, with its specific
     types of productivity and social organisation of labour. Thus for
     him, capitalist methods of labour-discipline or one-man management
     were not necessarily incompatible with socialism. Indeed, he went so
     far as to consider them to be inherently progressive, failing to
     recognise that such methods undermined workers' initiative at the
     point of production. This was because Lenin believed that the
     transition to socialism was guaranteed, ultimately, not by the
     self-activity of workers, but by the 'proletarian' character of
     state power. . . There is no doubt that Lenin did conceive
     proletarian power in terms of the central state and lacked a
     conception of localising such power at the point of production."
     [Red Petrograd, pp. 261-2]

   The outcome of this struggle was the victory of the Bolshevik vision
   (as it had state power to enforce it) and the imposition of apparently
   "efficient" capitalist methods of organisation. However, the net effect
   of using (or, more correctly, imposing) capitalist organisations was,
   unsurprisingly, the re-introduction of capitalist social relations.
   Little wonder the Russian Revolution quickly became just another form
   of capitalism -- state
   capitalism where the state appointed manager replaced the boss and the
   workers' position remained identical. Lenin's attempts to centralise
   production simply replaced workers' power at the point of production
   with that of state bureaucrats.

   We must point out the central fallacy of the SWP's argument.
   Essentially they are arguing you need to fight fire with fire. They
   argue that the capitalist class is centralised and so, in order to
   defeat them, so must we. Unfortunately for the SWP, you do not put a
   fire out with fire, you put fire out with water. Therefore, to defeat
   centralised system you need decentralised social organisation. Such
   decentralisation is required to include the bulk of the population in
   the revolutionary struggle and does not imply isolation. A
   decentralised movement does not preclude co-ordination or co-operation
   but that co-ordination must come from below, based on federal
   structures, and not imposed from above.

   So a key difference between anarchism and Marxism on how the movement
   against capitalism should organise in the here and now. Anarchists
   argue that it should prefigure the society we desire -- namely it
   should be self-managed, decentralised, built and organised from the
   bottom-up in a federal structure. This perspective can be seen from the
   justly famous Sonvillier Circular:

     "The future society should be nothing but a universalisation of the
     organisation which the International will establish for itself. We
     must therefore take care to bring this organisation as near as
     possible to our ideal . . . How could one expect an egalitarian and
     free society to grow out of an authoritarian organisation? That is
     impossible. The International, embryo of the future human society,
     must be, from now on, the faithful image of our principles of
     liberty and federation." [quoted by Marx, Fictitious Splits in the
     International]

   Of course, Marx replied to this argument and, in so doing,
   misrepresented the anarchist position. He argued that the Paris
   Communards "would not have failed if they had understood that the
   Commune was 'the embryo of the future human society' and had cast away
   all discipline and all arms -- that is, the things which must disappear
   when there are no more wars!" [Ibid.] Needless to say this is simply a
   slander on the anarchist position. Anarchists, as the Circular makes
   clear, recognise that we cannot totally reflect the future and so the
   current movement can only be "as near as possible to our ideal." Thus
   we have to do things, such as fighting the bosses, rising in
   insurrection, smashing the state or defending a revolution, which we
   would not have to do in a socialist society but that does not imply we
   should not try and organise in a socialist way in the here and now.
   Such common sense, unfortunately, is lacking in Marx who instead
   decided to utter nonsense for a cheap polemical point.

   Therefore, if we want a revolution which is more than just a change in
   who the boss is, we must create new forms of organisation and struggle
   which do not reproduce the traits of the world we are fighting. To put
   out the fire of class society, we need the water of a classless society
   and so we should organise in a libertarian way, building the new world
   in the shell of the old.

16. Why is the SWP wrong about the A16 Washington D.C. demo?

   As an example of why Marxism is better than anarchism they give an
   example:

     "Protesters put up several roadblocks during the major
     anti-capitalist demonstration in Washington in April of this year.
     The police tried to clear them. The question arose of what the
     protesters should do.

     "Some wanted to try to maintain the roadblocks. Others thought the
     best tactic was to reorganise the protests into one demonstration.
     Instead of coming to a clear decision and acting on it, the key
     organiser of the whole event told people at each roadblock to do
     what they thought was right.

     "The resulting confusion weakened all the protests."

   Firstly, we must point out that this argument is somewhat ironic coming
   from a party that ignored the agreed plan during the Prague anti-WTO
   demonstration and did "what they thought was right" (see [16]section
   13). Indeed, the various anti-capitalist demonstrations have been
   extremely effective and have been organised in an anarchist manner thus
   refuting the SWP.

   Secondly, unfortunately for the SWP, they have the facts all wrong. The
   World Bank/IMF complex in Washington DC was extremely difficult to
   blockade. The police blocked over 50 blocks on the day of the
   demonstration to travel. DC has very wide streets. Many World Bank and
   IMF Delegates spent the night in those buildings, or came in early in
   the morning long before sunrise. This calls into question whether a
   blockade was the best strategy considering the logistic details
   involved (the Blockade strategy was abandoned for the Republican and
   Democratic Party Conference demonstrations). In addition to the
   blockades, there was an officially permitted rally blocks away from the
   action.

   The tactical process worked in practice like this. While there was an
   original plan agreed to by consensus at the beginning of the blockades
   by all affinity groups, with groups picking which intersection to
   occupy and which tactics to use, there was a great deal of flexibility
   as well. There were several flying columns that moved from intersection
   to intersection reinforcing barricades and increasing numbers where it
   looked like police might charge. The largest of these was the
   Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Bloc ("the Black Bloc") made up mostly of
   class-struggle anarchists but included a number of other left
   libertarians (such as council communists and autonomists). The RACB
   officially maintained its autonomy within the demonstration and worked
   with others when and where it could. The affinity groups of the RACB
   would come to quick decisions on what to do. Often, they would quickly
   respond to the situation; usually their appearance was enough for the
   cops to fall back after a few tense moments.

   By early afternoon, the various affinity groups manning the blockades
   were informed that the blockades had failed, and enough delegates had
   made it inside that the meeting was continuing inside with only a short
   delay. So the question came of what to do next? There were varying
   opinions. Some affinity groups favoured maintaining their blockades
   symbolically as an act of defiance and hoping to slow the dispersion of
   World Bank/IMF representatives as they left the meeting. Others wished
   to have a victory march around the area. Others wanted to join the
   rally. Some wanted to march on the World Bank and try for an
   occupation. There was no consensus. After much discussion between the
   affinity groups, a decision was reached.

   The RACB was divided between two choices -- either join with the rally
   or march on the Bank. There was a lot of negotiation back and forth
   between affinity groups. A compromise was reached. The RACB would move
   to each blockade in order and provide cover for those locked down to
   unlock and safely merge with the growing march so that attempts could
   be made the next day do blockade. The march continued to swell as it
   made its way along the route, eventually merging with the crowd at the
   permitted demonstration.

   A decision was made. Perhaps it wasn't the most militant. Perhaps it
   did not foresee that the next day would lack the numbers to even
   attempt a successful blockade. But arrests on the demonstration were
   kept to a minimum, a large show of strength was put on and strong
   feelings of solidarity and camaraderie grew. The cops could only
   control a few square blocks, the rest of the city was ours. And it was
   a decision that everyone had a part in making, and one that everyone
   could live with. It's called self-management, perhaps it isn't always
   the fastest method of making decisions, but it is the best one if you
   desire freedom.

   Of course, the last thing the SWP would want to admit is that
   anarchists led the victory march around Washington D.C. without a
   permit, without marshals, without many arrests and a minimal amount of
   violence! Of all the recent demonstrations in the U.S. the black bloc
   was the largest and most well received at Washington. Moreover, that
   demonstration showed that decentralised, federal organisation worked in
   practice. Each affinity group participated in the decision making
   process and an agreement reached between all involved. Centralisation
   was not required, no centre imposed the decision. Rather than weaken
   the protests, decentralisation strengthened it by involving all in the
   decision making process. Little wonder the SWP re-wrote history.

17. Why does the SWP's Washington example refute the SWP's own argument and not
anarchism?

   However, let us assume that the SWP's fictional account of the A16
   demonstration (see [17]last section) was, in fact, true. What does it
   actually mean? We must point out its interesting logic. They argue that
   the protests had a "key organiser" which means they were centralised.
   They argue that the protestors looked to that person for direction.
   Unfortunately that person could not come to a "clear decision" and
   instead handed back decision making to each roadblock. In other words,
   centralisation failed, not federalism. Moreover, the state would have
   had a simple means to destroy the demonstration -- arrest the "key
   organiser." In a centralised system, without a centre, the whole
   structure collapses -- without someone giving orders, nothing is done.

   In a federal structure each roadblock would have sent a delegate to a
   council to co-ordinate struggle (which, we stress, was what actually
   did happen). To quote Bakunin, "there will be a federation of the
   standing barricades and a Revolutionary Communal Council will operate
   on the basis of one or two delegates from each barricade . . . these
   deputies being invested with binding mandates and accountable and
   revocable at all times." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 155] In the
   SWP's version of history, the blockades did not do this and so,
   unsurprisingly, without organisation, there was confusion. As an
   argument against anarchism it is useless. So the SWP's fictional
   example is an argument against centralisation -- of placing
   decision-making power at the centre. In their story, faced with the
   task of co-ordinating actions which they had no knowledge of, the "key
   organiser" could not act and by not having a federal structure, the
   roadblocks were weakened due to lack of co-ordination. In reality, a
   federal structure existed within the demonstration, each roadblock and
   affinity group could take effective action instantly to counter the
   police, without waiting for instructions from the centre, as well as
   communicate what has happening to other roadblocks and come to common
   agreements on what action to take. The Washington demonstration -- like
   the other anti-capitalist demonstrations -- showed the effectiveness of
   anarchist principles, of decentralisation and federalism from the
   bottom up.

   So the SWP's analysis of the Washington demonstration is faulty on two
   levels. Firstly, their account is not accurate. The demonstration was
   organised in a decentralised manner and worked extremely well.
   Secondly, even if their account was not fiction, it proves the failure
   of centralisation, not federalism.

   They draw a lesson from their fictional account:

     "The police, needless to say, did not 'decentralise' their decision
     making. They co-ordinated across the city to break the protests."

   Such an analogy indicates the bourgeois and authoritarian nature of the
   SWP's politics. They do not understand that the capitalist state and
   workplace is centralised for a reason. It is to concentrate power into
   the hands of a few, with the many reduced to mere order takers. It is
   the means by which bourgeois rule is enforced

   Moreover, they seem to be arguing that if we followed the example of
   the bourgeois state, of the organisational structure of the police or
   the army, then we would be as "effective" as they are. They are, in
   effect, arguing that the anti-capitalist movement should reproduce the
   regulated docility of the police force into its ranks, reproduce the
   domination of a few bosses at the top over a mass of unquestioning
   automations at the bottom. As Murray Bookchin argued, the Leninist "has
   always had a grudging admiration and respect for that most inhuman of
   all hierarchical institutions, the military." [Toward an Ecological
   Society, p. 254f] The SWP prove him right.

18. Why is a "revolutionary party" a contradiction in terms?

   They continue by arguing that "Anarchists say a revolutionary party is
   at best unnecessary and at worst another form of authoritarianism. But
   they cannot avoid the problems that a revolutionary party addresses."
   In reality, while anarchists reject the "revolutionary" party, they do
   not reject the need for an anarchist federation to spread anarchist
   ideas, convince others of our ideas and to give a lead during
   struggles. We reject the Bolshevik style "revolutionary party" simply
   because it is organised in a centralised, bourgeois, fashion and so
   produces all the problems of capitalist society within so-called
   revolutionary organisations. As the anarchists of Trotwatch explain,
   such a party leaves much to be desired:

     "In reality, a Leninist Party simply reproduces and
     institutionalises existing capitalist power relations inside a
     supposedly 'revolutionary' organisation: between leaders and led;
     order givers and order takers; between specialists and the
     acquiescent and largely powerless party workers. And that elitist
     power relation is extended to include the relationship between the
     party and class." [Carry on Recruiting!, p. 41]

   Such an organisation can never create a socialist society. In contrast,
   anarchists argue that socialist organisations should reflect as much as
   possible the future society we are aiming to create. To build
   organisations which are statist/capitalistic in structure cannot do
   other than reproduce the very problems of capitalism/statism into them
   and so undermine their liberatory potential. As Murray Bookchin puts
   it:

     "The 'glorious party,' when there is one, almost invariably lags
     behind the events . . . In the beginning . . . it tends to have an
     inhibitory function, not a 'vanguard' role. Where it exercises
     influence, it tends to slow down the flow of events, not 'co-
     ordinate' the revolutionary forced. This is not accidental. The
     party is structured along hierarchical lines that reflect the very
     society it professes to oppose . . . Its membership is schooled in
     obedience . . . The party's leadership, in turn, is schooled in
     habits born of command, authority, manipulation . . . Its leaders .
     . . lose contact with the living situation below. The local groups,
     which know their own immediate situation better than any remote
     leaders, are obliged to subordinate their insights to directives
     from above. The leadership, lacking any direct knowledge of local
     problems, responds sluggishly and prudently. . .

     "The party becomes less efficient from a revolutionary point of view
     the more it seeks efficiency by means of hierarchy, cadres and
     centralisation. Although everyone marches in step, the orders are
     usually wrong, especially when events begin to move rapidly and take
     unexpected turns-as they do in all revolutions. The party is
     efficient in only one respect-in moulding society in its own
     hierarchical imagine if the revolution is successful. It recreates
     bureaucracy, centralisation and the state. It fosters the
     bureaucracy, centralisation and the state. It fosters the very
     social conditions which justify this kind of society. Hence, instead
     of 'withering away,' the state controlled by the 'glorious party'
     preserves the very conditions which 'necessitate' the existence of a
     state -- and a party to 'guard' it.

     "On the other hand, this kind of party is extremely vulnerable in
     periods of repression. The bourgeoisie has only to grab its
     leadership to destroy virtually the entire movement. With its
     leaders in prison or in hiding, the party becomes paralysed; the
     obedient membership had no one to obey and tends to flounder . . .

     "[T]he Bolshevik leadership was ordinarily extremely conservative, a
     trait that Lenin had to fight throughout 1917 -- first in his
     efforts to reorient the Central Committee against the provisional
     government (the famous conflict over the 'April Theses'), later in
     driving the Central Committee toward insurrection in October. In
     both cases he threatened to resign from the Central Committee and
     bring his views to 'the lower ranks of the party.'"
     [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, pp. 194-9]

   Thus the example of the "successful" Russian Revolution indicates the
   weakness of Leninism -- Lenin had to fight the party machine he helped
   create in order to get it do anything revolutionary. Hardly a good
   example of a "revolutionary" party.

   But, then again, the SWP know that anarchists do not reject the need
   for anarchists to organise as anarchists to influence the class
   struggle. As they argue, "Anarchism's attempts to deal with them have
   been far less effective and less democratic." The question is not of
   one of whether revolutionaries should organise together but how they do
   this. And as we shall see in the next four sections, the SWP's examples
   of revolutionary anarchist organisations are either unique and so
   cannot be generalised from (Bakunin's ideas on revolutionary
   organisation), or false (the F.A.I. was not organised in the way the
   SWP claim). Indeed, the simple fact is that the SWP ignore the usual
   ways anarchists organise as anarchists and yet try and draw conclusions
   about anarchism from their faulty examples.

19. Do anarchists operate "in secret"?

   They continue:

     "All the major anarchist organisations in history have been
     centralised but have operated in secret."

   It is just as well they say "all the major anarchist organisations," it
   allows them to ignore counter-examples. We can point to hundreds of
   anarchist organisations that are/were not secret. For example, the
   Italian Anarchist Union (IAU) was a non-secret organisation. Given that
   the IAU had around 20 000 members in 1920, we wonder by what criteria
   the SWP excludes it from being a "major anarchist organisation"? After
   all, estimates of the membership of the F.A.I. (one of the SWP's two
   "major" anarchist organisations) vary from around 6 000 to around 30
   000. Bakunin's "Alliance" (the other SWP example) amounted to, at most,
   under 100. In terms of size, the IAU was equal to the F.A.I. and
   outnumbered the "Alliance" considerably. Why was the UAI not a "major
   anarchist organisation"?

   Another, more up to date, example is the French Anarchist Federation
   which organises today. It as a weekly paper and groups all across
   France as well as in Belgium. That is not secret and is one of the
   largest anarchist organisations existing today (and so, by anyone's
   standards "a major anarchist organisation"). We wonder why the SWP
   excludes it? Simply because they know their generalisation is false?

   Therefore, as can be seen, the SWP's claim is simply a lie. Few
   anarchist organisations have been secret. Those that have been secret
   have done so when conditions demanded it (for example, during periods
   of repression and when operating in countries with authoritarian
   governments). Just as Marxist organisations have done. For example, the
   Bolsheviks were secret for great periods of time under Tsarism and,
   ironically enough, the Trotskyist-Zinovievist United Opposition had to
   resort to secret and conspiratorial organisation to reach the Russian
   Communist Party rank and file in the 1920s. Therefore, to claim that
   anarchists have some sort of monopoly of secret organising is simply a
   lie -- Marxists, like anarchists, have sometimes organised in secret
   when they have been forced to by state repression or likelihood of
   state repression. It is not a principle but, rather, sometimes a
   necessity. As anyone with even a basic grasp of anarchist history would
   know.

   Similarly for the SWP's claims that "all the major anarchist
   organisations in history have been centralised." Such a claim is also a
   lie, as we shall prove in the sections [18]20 and [19]22.

20. Why is the SWP wrong about Bakunin's organisation?

   As an example of a "major anarchist organisation" the SWP point to
   Bakunin and the organisations he created:

     "The 19th century theorist of anarchism Mikhail Bakunin's
     organisation had a hierarchy of committees, with half a dozen people
     at the top, which were not under the democratic control of its
     members."

   Firstly, we have to wonder why anyone would have wanted to join
   Bakunin's group if they had no say in the organisation. Also, given
   that communication in the 19th century was extremely slow, such an
   organisation would have spent most of its time waiting for instructions
   from above. Why would anyone want to join such a group? Simple logic
   undermines the SWP's argument.

   Secondly, we should also point out that the Bolshevik party itself was
   a secret organisation for most of its life in Tsarist Russia. Bakunin,
   an exile from that society, would have been aware, like the Bolsheviks,
   of the necessity of secret organising. Moreover, having spent a number
   of years imprisoned by the Tsar, Bakunin would not have desired to end
   up back in prison after escaping from Siberia to the West. In addition,
   given that the countries in which anarchists were operating at the time
   were not democracies, in the main, a secret organisation would have
   been considered essential. As Murray Bookchin argues, "Bakunin's
   emphasis on conspiracy and secrecy can be understood only against the
   social background of Italy, Spain, and Russia the three countries in
   Europe where conspiracy and secrecy were matters of sheer survival."
   [The Spanish Anarchists, p. 24] The SWP ignore the historical context.

   Thirdly, the reality of Bakunin's organisation is slightly different
   from the SWP's claims. We have discussed this issue in great detail in
   [20]section J.3.7 of the FAQ. However, it is useful to indicate the
   type of organisation Bakunin thought was necessary to aid the
   revolution. If we do, it soon becomes clear that the SWP's claim that
   it was "not under the democratic control of its members" is not true.
   To do so we shall quote from his letter to the Russian Nihilist Sergy
   Nechayev in which he explains the differences in their ideas. He
   discusses the "principles and mutual conditions" for a "new society" of
   revolutionaries in Russia (noting that this was an "outline of a plan"
   which "must be developed, supplemented, and sometimes altered according
   to circumstances"):

     "Equality among all members and the unconditional and absolute
     solidarity -- one for all and all for one -- with the obligation for
     each and everyone to help each other, support and save each other. .
     .

     "Complete frankness among members and proscription of any Jesuitical
     methods in their relationships . . . When a member has to say
     anything against another member, this must be done at a general
     meeting and in his presence. General fraternal control of each other
     . . .

     "Everyone's personal intelligence vanished like a river in the sea
     in the collective intelligence and all members obey unconditionally
     the decisions of the latter.

     "All members are equal; they know all their comrades and discuss and
     decide with them all the most important and essential questions
     bearing on the programme of the society and the progress of the
     cause. The decision of the general meeting is absolute law. . .

     "The society chooses an Executive Committee from among their number
     consisting of three or five members who should organise the branches
     of the society and manage its activities in all the regions of the
     [Russian] Empire on the basis of the programme and general plan of
     action adopted by the decision of the society as a whole. . .

     "This Committee is elected for an indefinite term. If the society .
     . . the People's Fraternity is satisfied with the actions of the
     Committee, it will be left as such; and while it remains a Committee
     each member . . . and each regional group have to obey it
     unconditionally, except in such cases where the orders of the
     Committee contradict either the general programme of the principle
     rules, or the general revolutionary plan of action, which are known
     to everybody as all . . . have participated equally in the
     discussion of them. . .

     "In such a case members of the group must halt the execution of the
     Committee's orders and call the Committee to judgement before the
     general meeting . . . If the general meeting is discontented with
     the Committee, it can always substitute another one for it. . .

     "Any member or any group is subject to judgement by the general
     meeting . . .

     "No new Brother can be accepted without the consent of all or at the
     very least three-quarters of all the members. . .

     "The Committee divides the members . . . among the Regions and
     constitutes Regional groups of leaderships from them . . . Regional
     leadership is charged with organising the second tier of the society
     -- the Regional Fraternity, on the basis of the same programme, the
     same rules, and the same revolutionary plan. . .

     "All members of the Regional Fraternity know each other, but do not
     know of the existence of the People's Fraternity. They only know
     that there exists a Central Committee which hands down to them their
     orders for execution through Regional Committee which has been set
     up by it, i.e. by the Central Committee . . .

     "Each Regional Committee will set up District Committees from
     members of the Regional Fraternity and will appoint and replace
     them. . . .

     "District Committees can, if necessary and only with the consent of
     the Regional Committee, set up a third tier of the organisation --
     District Fraternity with a programme and regulations as near as
     possible to the general programme and regulations of the People's
     Fraternity. The programme and regulations of the District Fraternity
     will not come into force until they are discussed and passed by the
     general meeting of the Regional Fraternity and have been confirmed
     by the Regional Committee. . .

     "Jesuitical control . . . are totally excluded from all three tiers
     of the secret organisation . . . The strength of the whole society,
     as well as the morality, loyalty, energy and dedication of each
     member, is based exclusively and totally on the shared truth,
     sincerity and trust, and on the open fraternal control of all over
     each one."
     [cited by Michael Confino, Daughter of a Revolutionary, pp. 264-6]

   As can be seen, while there is much in Bakunin's ideas that few
   anarchists would agree to, it cannot be said that it was not under the
   "democratic control of its members." The system of committees is hardly
   libertarian but neither is it the top-down dictatorship the SWP argue
   it was. For example, the central committee was chosen by the "general
   meeting" of the members, which also decided upon the "programme of the
   society and the progress of the cause." Its "decision" was "absolute
   law" and the central committee could be replaced by it. Moreover, the
   membership could ignore the decisions of the central committee if it
   "contradict[ed] either the general programme of the principle rules, or
   the general revolutionary plan of action, which are known to everybody
   as all . . . have participated equally in the discussion of them." Each
   tier of the organisation had the same "programme and regulations."
   Anarchists today would agree that Bakunin's plan was extremely flawed.
   The appointment of committees from above is hardly libertarian, even
   given that each tier had the same "regulations" and so general meetings
   of each Fraternity, for example. However, the SWP's summary of
   Bakunin's ideas, as can be seen, is flawed.

   Given that no other anarchist group or federation operated in this way,
   it is hard to generalise from Bakunin's flawed ideas on organisation to
   a conclusion about anarchism. But, of course, this is what the SWP do
   -- and such a generalisation is simply a lie. The example of the
   F.A.I., the SWP's other example, indicates how most anarchist
   organisations work in practice -- namely, a decentralised federation of
   autonomous groups (see [21]section 22).

   Moreover, as we will indicate in the [22]next section, the SWP have
   little reason to attack Bakunin's ideas. This is because Lenin had
   similar (although not identical) ones on the question of organising
   revolutionaries in Tsarist Russia and because the SWP are renown for
   their leadership being secretive, centralised, bureaucratic and
   top-down.

   In summary, anarchists agree with the SWP that Bakunin's ideas are not
   to be recommended while pointing out that the likes of the SWP fail to
   provide an accurate account of their internal workings (i.e. they were
   more democratic than the SWP suggest), the role Bakunin saw for them in
   the labour movement and revolution or the historical context in which
   they were shaped. Moreover, we also argue that their comments against
   Bakunin, ironically, apply with equal force to their own party which is
   renown, like all Bolshevik-style parties, as being undemocratic,
   top-down and authoritarian. We turn to this issue in the [23]next
   section.

21. Why is the SWP's attack on Bakunin's organisation ironic?

   That the SWP attack Bakunin's organisational schema (see [24]last
   section) is somewhat ironic. After all, the Bolshevik party system had
   many of the features of Bakunin's organisational plan. If Bakunin,
   quite rightly, should be attacked for certain aspects of these ideas,
   then so must Bolshevik parties like the SWP.

   For example, Lenin argued in favour of centralisation and secrecy in
   his work What is to be Done?. In this work he argued as follows:

     "The active and widespread participation of the masses will not
     suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that a 'dozen'
     experienced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than the
     police, will centralise all the secret side of the work -- prepare
     leaflets, work out approximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders
     for each urban district, for each factory district and for each
     educational institution, etc. [our emphasis] (I know that exception
     will be taken to my 'undemocratic' views, but I shall reply to this
     altogether unintelligent objection later on.) The centralisation of
     the most secret functions in an organisation of revolutionaries will
     not diminish, but rather increase the extent and the quality of the
     activity of a large number of other organisations that are intended
     for wide membership and which, therefore, can be as loose and as
     public as possible, such as trade unions; workers' circles for
     self-education and the reading illegal literature, and socialist and
     also democratic, circles for all other sections of the population,
     etc., etc. We must have as large a number as possible of such
     organisations having the widest possible variety of functions, but
     it would be absurd and dangerous to confuse them with the
     organisation of revolutionaries, to erase the line of demarcation
     between them, to make still more the masses' already incredibly hazy
     appreciation of the fact that in order to 'serve' the mass movement
     we must have people who will devote themselves exclusively to
     Social-Democratic activities, and that such people must train
     themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional
     revolutionaries." [The Essential Lenin, p. 149]

   And:

     "The only serious organisational principle the active workers of our
     movement can accept is strict secrecy, strict selection of members,
     and the training of professional revolutionaries. If we possessed
     these qualities, something even more than 'democratism' would be
     guaranteed to us, namely, complete, comradely, mutual confidence
     among revolutionaries. And this is absolutely essential for us,
     because in Russia it is useless thinking that democratic control can
     substitute for it." [our emphasis, Op. Cit., p. 162]

   Thus we have Lenin advocating "strict secrecy, strict selection of
   members" as well as a centralised party which will "appoint bodies of
   leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and for each
   educational institution." The parallels with Bakunin's system are clear
   and are predominately the result of the identical political conditions
   both revolutionaries experienced. While anarchists are happy to
   indicate and oppose the non-libertarian aspects of Bakunin's ideas, it
   is hard for the likes of the SWP to attack Bakunin while embracing
   Lenin's ideas on the party, justifying their more "un-democratic"
   aspects as a result of the objective conditions of Tsarism.

   Similar top-down perspectives can be seen from Bolshevism in Power. The
   1918 constitution of the Soviet Union argued that local soviets were to
   "carry out all orders of the respective higher organs of the soviet
   power." In 1919, the Bolshevik's Eighth Party Congress strengthened
   party discipline. As Maurice Brinton notes, the "Congress ruled that
   each decision must above all be fulfilled. Only after this is an appeal
   to the corresponding Party organ permissible." [The Bolsheviks and
   Workers' Control, p. 55] He quotes the resolution:

     "The whole matter of posting of Party workers is in the hands of the
     Central Committee. Its decisions are binding for everyone." [Op.
     Cit., pp. 55-6]

   This perspective was echoed in the forerunner of the SWP, the
   International Socialists. In September 1968, the Political Committee of
   International Socialism submitted the "Perspectives for I.S." Point 4
   said:

     "Branches must accept directives from the Centre, unless they
     fundamentally disagree with them, in which case they should try to
     accord with them, while demanding an open debate on the matter."
     [quoted by Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 55f]

   The parallels with Bakunin's ideas are clear (see [25]last section).
   However, it is to Bakunin's credit that he argued that while "each
   regional group have to obey it [the central committee] unconditionally"
   he recognised that there existed "cases where the orders of the
   Committee contradict either the general programme of the principle
   rules, or the general revolutionary plan of action, which are known to
   everybody as all . . . have participated equally in the discussion of
   them." when this happened, "members of the group must halt the
   execution of the Committee's orders and call the Committee to judgement
   before the general meeting . . . If the general meeting is discontented
   with the Committee, it can always substitute another one for it." Thus,
   rather than the unquestioning obedience of the Bolshevik party, who
   have to obey, then complain, the members of Bakunin's group did not
   negate their judgement and could refuse to carry out orders.

   Therefore, the SWP have a problem. On the one hand, they denounce
   Bakunin's ideas of a centralised, secret top-down organisation of
   revolutionaries. On the other, the party structure that Lenin
   recommends is also a tightly disciplined, centralised, top-down
   structure with a membership limited to those who are willing to be
   professional revolutionaries. They obviously want to have their cake
   and eat it too. Unfortunately for them, they cannot. If they attack
   Bakunin, they must attack Lenin, not to do so is hypocrisy.

   The simple fact is that the parallels between Bakunin's and Lenin's
   organisational ideas cannot be understood without recognising that both
   revolutionaries were operating in an autocratic state under conditions
   of complete illegality, with a highly organised political police trying
   to infiltrate and destroy any attempt to change the regime. Once this
   is recognised, the SWP's comments can be seen to be hypocritical in the
   extreme. Nor can their feeble attempt to use Bakunin to generalise
   about all anarchist organisations be taken seriously as Bakunin's
   organisations were not "major" nor were his ideas on secret
   organisation and organising followed after his death. They were a
   product of Bakunin's experiences in Tsarist Russian and not generic to
   anarchism (as the SWP know fine well).

   Moreover, many people leave the SWP due to its undemocratic,
   authoritarian and bureaucratic nature. The comments by one group of
   ex-SWP dissidents indicate the hypocrisy of the SWP's attack on
   Bakunin:

     "The SWP is not democratic centralist but bureaucratic centralist.
     The leadership's control of the party is unchecked by the members.
     New perspectives are initiated exclusively by the central committee
     (CC), who then implement their perspective against all party
     opposition, implicit or explicit, legitimate or otherwise.

     "Once a new perspective is declared, a new cadre is selected from
     the top down. The CC select the organisers, who select the district
     and branch committees -- any elections that take place are carried
     out on the basis of 'slates' so that it is virtually impossible for
     members to vote against the slate proposed by the leadership. Any
     members who have doubts or disagreements are written off as 'burnt
     out' and, depending on their reaction to this, may be marginalised
     within the party and even expelled.

     [. . .]

     "The outcome is a party whose conferences have no democratic
     function, but serve only to orientate party activists to carry out
     perspectives drawn up before the delegates even set out from their
     branches. At every level of the party, strategy and tactics are
     presented from the top down, as pre-digested instructions for
     action. At every level, the comrades 'below' are seen only as a
     passive mass to be shifted into action, rather than as a source of
     new initiatives."
     [ISG, Discussion Document of Ex-SWP Comrades]

   They argue that a "democratic" party would involve the "[r]egular
   election of all party full-timers, branch and district leadership,
   conference delegates, etc. with the right of recall," which means that
   in the SWP appointment of full-timers, leaders and so on is the norm.
   They argue for the "right of branches to propose motions to the party
   conference" and for the "right for members to communicate horizontally
   in the party, to produce and distribute their own documents." They
   stress the need for "an independent Control Commission to review all
   disciplinary cases (independent of the leadership bodies that exercise
   discipline), and the right of any disciplined comrades to appeal
   directly to party conference." They argue that in a democratic party
   "no section of the party would have a monopoly of information" which
   indicates that the SWP's leadership is essentially secretive,
   withholding information from the party membership. [Op. Cit.] As can be
   seen, the SWP have little grounds on which to attack Bakunin given this
   damning account of its internal workings.

   Other dissidents argue the same point. In 1991 members in Southampton
   SWP asked "When was the last time a motion or slate to conference was
   opposed?" and pointed out:

     "The CC usually stays the same or changes by one member. Most of the
     changes to its composition are made between Conferences. None of the
     CC's numerous decisions made over the preceding year are challenged
     or brought to account. Even the Pre-Conference bulletins contain
     little disagreements."

   They stress that:

     "There is real debate within the SWP, but the framework for
     discussion is set by the Central Committee. The agenda's national
     events . . . are set by the CC or its appointees and are never
     challenged . . . Members can only express their views through
     Conference and Council to the whole party indirectly." [quoted by
     Trotwatch, Carry On Recruiting!, p. 39 and pp. 40-1]

   Therefore, the SWP does not really have a leg to stand on. While
   Bakunin's ideas on organisation are far from perfect, the actual
   practice of the SWP places their comments in context. They attack
   Bakunin while acting in similar ways while claiming they do not.
   Anarchists do not hold up Bakunin's ideas on how anarchists should
   organise themselves as examples to be followed nor as particularly
   democratic (in contrast to his ideas on how the labour movement and
   revolution should be organised, which we do recommend) -- as the SWP
   know. However, the SWP claim they are a revolutionary party and yet
   their organisational practices are deeply anti-democratic with a veneer
   of (bourgeois) democracy. The hypocrisy is clear.

   Ironically, the ISG dissidents who attack the SWP for being
   "bureaucratic centralist" note that "[a]nybody who has spent time
   involved in 'Leninist' organisations will have come across workers who
   agree with Marxist politics but refuse to join the party because they
   believe it to be undemocratic and authoritarian. Many draw the
   conclusion that Leninism itself is at fault, as every organisation that
   proclaims itself Leninist appears to follow the same pattern." [Lenin
   vs. the SWP: Bureaucratic Centralism Or Democratic Centralism?] This is
   a common refrain with Leninists -- when reality says one thing and the
   theory another, it must be reality that is at fault. Yes, every
   Leninist organisation may be bureaucratic and authoritarian but it is
   not the theory's fault that those who apply it are not capable of
   actually doing it. Such an application of scientific principles by the
   followers of "scientific socialism" is worthy of note -- obviously the
   usual scientific method of generalising from facts to produce a theory
   is inapplicable when evaluating "scientific socialism" itself.

   One last point. While some may argue that the obvious parallels between
   Bakunin's ideas and Lenin's should embarrass anarchists, most
   anarchists disagree. This is for four reasons.

   Firstly, anarchists are not "Bakuninists" or followers of "Bakuninism."
   This means that we do not blindly follow the ideas of individuals,
   rather we take what we find useful and reject the flawed and
   non-libertarian aspects of their ideas. Therefore, if we think
   Bakunin's specific ideas on how revolutionaries should organise are
   flawed and not libertarian then we reject them while keeping the bulk
   of Bakunin's useful and libertarian ideas as inspiration. We do not
   slavishly follow individuals or their ideas but apply critical
   judgement and embrace what we find useful and reject what we consider
   nonsense.

   Secondly, anarchism did not spring fully formed out of Bakunin's (or
   Proudhon's or Kropotkin's or whoever's) mind. We expect individuals to
   make mistakes, not to be totally consistent, not totally break with
   their background. Bakunin clearly did not manage to break completely
   with his background as a political exile and an escapee from Tsarist
   Russia. Hence his arguments and support for secret organisation -- his
   experiences, like Lenin's, pushed him in that direction. Moreover, we
   should also remember that Russia was not the only country which the
   anarchist and labour movements were repressed during this time. In
   France, after the defeat of the Paris Commune, the International was
   made illegal. The Spanish section of the International had been
   proscribed in 1872 and the central and regional authorities repressed
   it systematically from the summer of 1873, forcing the organisation to
   remain underground between 1874 and 1881. As can be seen, the SWP
   forget the historical context when attacking Bakunin's secrecy.

   Thirdly, Bakunin did not, like Lenin, think that "socialist
   consciousness" had to be introduced into the working class. He argued
   that due to the "economic struggle of labour and capital" a worker who
   joined the International Workers' Association "would inevitably
   discover, through the very force of circumstances and through the
   develop of this struggle, the political, socialist, and philosophical
   principles of the International." He thought that working class people
   were "socialists without knowing it" as "their most basic instinct and
   their social situation makes them . . . earnestly and truly socialist .
   . . They are socialist because of all the conditions of their material
   existence and all the needs of their being. . . The workers lack
   neither the potential for socialist aspirations nor their actuality;
   they lack socialist thought." Thus the "germs" of "socialist thought"
   are to "be found in the instinct of every earnest worker. The goal . .
   . is to make the worker fully aware of what he wants." The method? The
   class struggle itself -- "the International relies on the collective
   experience he gains in its bosom, especially on the progress of the
   collective struggle of the workers against the bosses." [The Basic
   Bakunin, p. 100 and pp. 101-3]

   Bakunin did not deny the importance of those who already are socialists
   to organise themselves and "influence" those who were not socialists so
   that in "critical moments [they will] . . . follow the International's
   lead." However, this influence was not to inject socialist ideas into
   the working class but rather to aid their development by the
   "propagation of its [the International] ideas and . . . the
   organisation of its members' natural effect on the masses." As can be
   seen, Bakunin's ideas on this subject differ considerably from Lenin's.
   [Op. Cit., p. 139 and p. 140]

   Unsurprisingly, the programme of the revolutionary organisation had to
   reflect the instincts and needs of the working population and must
   never be imposed on them. As he argued, the working masses were "not a
   blank page on which any secret society can write whatever it wishes . .
   . It has worked out, partly consciously, probably three-quarters
   unconsciously, its own programme which the secret society must get to
   know or guess and to which it must adapt itself." He stresses that once
   the state "is destroyed . . . the people will rise . . . for their own
   [ideal]" and anyone "who tries to foist his own programme on the people
   will be left holding the baby." [quoted in Daughter of a Revolutionary,
   Michael Confino (ed.), p. 252, p. 254 and p. 256] As he stresses,
   libertarian socialist ideas come from the masses and not from outside
   them:

     "In opposition to . . . oppressive statist orientations . . . an
     entirely new orientation finally arose from the depths of the
     proletariat itself . . . It proceeds directly to the abolition of
     all exploitation and all political or juridical as well as
     governmental and bureaucratic oppression, in other words, to the
     abolition of all classes . . . and the abolition of their last
     buttress, the state.

     "That is the program of social revolution."
     [Statism and Anarchy, pp. 48-9]

   Therefore, for Bakunin, the revolutionary organisation did not play the
   same role as for Lenin. It existed to aid the development of socialist
   consciousness within the working class, not inject that consciousness
   into a mass who cannot develop it by their own efforts. The difference
   is important as Lenin's theory justified the substitution of party
   power for workers power, the elimination of democracy and the
   domination of the party over the class it claimed to represent.
   Bakunin, recognising that socialist ideas are "instinctive" in the
   working class due to their position in society and their everyday
   experiences, could not do this as the organisation existed to clarify
   these tendencies, not create them in the first place and inject them
   into the masses.

   Lastly, the role the organisation plays in the workers' movement and
   revolution are distinctly different. As Bakunin constantly stressed,
   the secret organisation must never take state power. As he put it, the
   "main purpose and task of the organisation" would be to "help the
   people to achieve self-determination." It would "not threaten the
   liberty of the people because it is free from all official character"
   and "not placed above the people like state power." Its programme
   "consists of the fullest realisation of the liberty of the people" and
   its influence is "not contrary to the free development and
   self-determination of the people, or its organisation from below
   according to its own customs and instincts because it acts on the
   people only by the natural personal influence of its members who are
   not invested with any power." Thus the revolutionary group would be the
   "helper" of the masses, with an "organisation within the people
   itself." [quoted by Michael Confino, Op. Cit., p. 259, p. 261, p. 256
   and p. 261] The revolution itself would see "an end to all masters and
   to domination of every kind, and the free construction of popular life
   in accordance with popular needs, not from above downward, as in the
   state, but from below upward, by the people themselves, dispensing with
   all governments and parliaments -- a voluntary alliance of agricultural
   and factory worker associations, communes, provinces, and nations; and,
   finally, . . . universal human brotherhood triumphing on the ruins of
   all the states." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 33]

   As can be seen, instead of seeking state power, as Lenin's party
   desired, Bakunin's would seek "natural influence" rather than "official
   influence." As we argued in [26]section J.3.7, this meant influencing
   the class struggle and revolution within the mass assemblies of
   workers' associations and communes and in their federations. Rather
   than seek state power and official leadership positions, as the
   Leninist party does, Bakunin's organisation rejected the taking of
   hierarchical positions in favour of working at the base of the
   organisation and providing a "leadership of ideas" rather than of
   people (see [27]section J.3.6). While Bakunin's organisational
   structures are flawed from a libertarian perspective (although more
   democratic than Marxists claim) the way it works within popular
   organisations is libertarian and in stark contrast with the Leninist
   position which sees these bodies as stepping stones for party power.

   Therefore, Bakunin rejected key Leninist ideas and so cannot be
   considered as a forefather of Bolshevism in spite of similar
   organisational suggestions. The similarity in structure is due to a
   similarity in political conditions in Russia and not similarities in
   political ideas. If we look at Bakunin's ideas on social revolution and
   the workers' movement we see a fully libertarian perspective -- of a
   movement from the bottom-up, based on the principles of direct action,
   self-management and federalism. Anarchists since his death have applied
   these ideas to the specific anarchist organisation as well, rejecting
   the non-libertarian elements of Bakunin's ideas which the SWP correctly
   (if somewhat hypocritically and dishonestly) denounce.

22. Was the F.A.I. a "centralised and secret" organisation that shunned "open
debate and common struggle"?

   They move onto Spanish Anarchism:

     "The anarchist organisation inside the Spanish C.N.T., the F.A.I.,
     was centralised and secret. A revolutionary party thrives on open
     debate and common struggle with wider groups of workers."

   We discuss this Marxist myth in more detail in [28]section 3 of the
   appendix on [29]"Marxists and Spanish Anarchism". However a few points
   are worth making. The F.A.I., regardless of what the SWP assert, was
   not centralised. It was a federation of autonomous affinity groups. As
   one member put it:

     "It was never its aim to act as a leadership or anything of the sort
     -- to begin with they had no slogans, nor was any line laid down,
     let alone any adherence to any hierarchical structure . . . This is
     what outside historians ought to grasp once and for all: that
     neither Durruti, nor Ascaso, nor Garcia Oliver -- to name only the
     great C.N.T. spokesmen -- issued any watchwords to the 'masses,' let
     alone delivered any operational plan or conspiratorial scheme to the
     bulk of the C.N.T. membership."

   He stresses that:

     "Each F.A.I. group thought and acted as it deemed fit, without
     bothering about what the others might be thinking or deciding . . .
     they had no . . . opportunity or jurisdiction . . . to foist a party
     line upon the grass-roots." [Francisco Carrasquer, quoted by Stuart
     Christie, We, the Anarchists!, p. 25 and p. 28]

   Murray Bookchin paints a similar picture:

     "The F.A.I. . . . was more loosely jointed as an organisation than
     many of its admirers and critics seem to recognise. It has no
     bureaucratic apparatus, no membership cards or dues, and no
     headquarters with paid officials, secretaries, and clerks. . . They
     jealously guarded the autonomy of their affinity groups from the
     authority of higher organisational bodies-a state of mind hardly
     conducive to the development of a tightly knit, vanguard
     organisation.

     "The F.A.I., moreover, was not a politically homogeneous
     organisation which followed a fixed 'line' like the Communists and
     many Socialists. It had no official program by which all faistas
     could mechanically guide their actions."
     [The Spanish Anarchists, p. 224]

   Stuart Christie argues that the decentralised nature of the F.A.I.
   helped it survive the frequent repression directed against it and the
   C.N.T:

     "The basic units of the F.A.I. were . . . small autonomous affinity
     groups of anarchist militants. This cohesive quasi-cellular form of
     association had evolved, gradually, over the period of time it takes
     for relationships to be established and for mutual trust to grow.
     The affinity groups consisted, usually, of between three and 10
     members bound by ties of friendship, and who shared well defined
     aims and agreed methods of struggle. Once such a group had come into
     existence it could, if it so wished, solicit affiliation to the
     F.A.I. . . The affinity groups were also highly resistant to police
     infiltration. Even if filtration did occur, or police agents did
     manage to set up their own 'affinity' groups it would not have been
     a particularly efficient means of intelligence gathering; the atomic
     structure of the F.A.I. meant there was no central body to provide
     an overview of the movement as a whole." [We, the Anarchists!, p.
     28]

   He stresses its decentralised nature:

     "Above all, it was not a representative body and involved no
     delegation of power either within the affinity groups or in the
     regional or national administrative bodies to empower those bodies
     to make decisions on behalf of the collectivity. Drawing on many
     years of revolutionary experience the F.A.I. was firmly rooted in
     federal principles and structured in such a way that its
     co-ordinating function did not deprive its constituent members of
     their autonomous power. . . . In situations where it was necessary
     for delegates to take decisions, e.g. at plenary meetings during
     times of crisis or clandestinity, those decisions were required to
     be ratified by the whole membership who, in effect, constituted the
     administration. . . The groups in a city or town constituted a Local
     Federation while the rural groups, combined, formed a District
     Federation. These were administered by a secretariat and a committee
     composed of one mandated delegate from each affinity group. The
     Local and District Federations were obliged to convene regular
     assemblies of all groups in its area. . . Local and District
     Federations constituted a Regional Federation. These, in turn, were
     co-ordinated by a Peninsular Committee. None of these committees,
     local, district, regional or national, could be described as having
     a bureaucratic apparatus. Nor did they wield executive power of any
     description. Their function was purely administrative." [Op. Cit.,
     pp. 29-30]

   Therefore, the claim that the F.A.I. was a centralised organisation is
   simply false. Rather it was a federation of autonomous groups, as can
   be seen (see also [30]section 3 of the appendix on [31]"Marxists and
   Spanish Anarchism" for more discussion on this topic).

   Was the F.A.I. a "secret" organisation? When it was founded in 1927,
   Spain was under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and so it was
   illegal and secret by necessity. As Stuart Christie correctly notes,
   "[a]s an organisation publicly committed to the overthrow of the
   dictatorship, the F.A.I. functioned, from 1927 to 1931, as an illegal
   rather than a secret organisation. From the birth of the Republic in
   1931 onwards, the F.A.I. was simply an organisation which, until 1937,
   refused to register as an organisation as required by Republican Law."
   [We, the Anarchists!, p. 24] Thus it was illegal rather than secret. As
   one anarchist militant asked, "[i]f it was secret, how come I was able
   to attend F.A.I. meetings without ever having joined or paid dues to
   the 'specific' organisation?" [Francesco Carrasquer, quoted by
   Christie, Op. Cit., p. 24]

   Moreover, given the periods of repression suffered by the Spanish
   libertarian movement throughout its history (including being banned and
   forced underground) being an illegal organisation made perfect sense.
   The anarchist movement was made illegal a number of times. Nor did the
   repression end during the Republic of 1931-6. This means that for the
   F.A.I. to be illegal was a sensible thing to do, particularly after
   failed revolutionary attempts resulted in massive arrests and the
   closing of union halls. Again, the SWP ignore historical context and so
   mislead the reader.

   Did the F.A.I. ignore "open debate and common struggle." No, of course
   not. The members of the F.A.I. were also members of the C.N.T. The
   C.N.T. was based around mass assemblies in which all members could
   speak. It was here that members of the F.A.I. took part in forming
   C.N.T. policy along with other C.N.T. members. Anarchists in the C.N.T.
   who were not members of the F.A.I. indicate this. Jose Borras
   Casacarosa notes that "[o]ne has to recognise that the F.A.I. did not
   intervene in the C.N.T. from above or in an authoritarian manner as did
   other political parties in the unions. It did so from the base through
   militants . . . the decisions which determined the course taken by the
   C.N.T. were taken under constant pressure from these militants." Jose
   Campos notes that F.A.I. militants "tended to reject control of
   confederal committees and only accepted them on specific occassions . .
   . if someone proposed a motion in assembly, the other F.A.I. members
   would support it, usually successfully. It was the individual standing
   of the faista in open assembly." [quoted by Stuart Christie, Op. Cit.,
   p. 62] As Francisco Ascaso (friend of Durruti and an influential
   anarchist militant in the C.N.T. and F.A.I. in his own right) put it:

     "There is not a single militant who as a 'F.A.I.ista' intervenes in
     union meetings. I work, therefore I am an exploited person. I pay my
     dues to the workers' union and when I intervene at union meetings I
     do it as someone who us exploited, and with the right which is
     granted me by the card in my possession, as do the other militants,
     whether they belong to the F.A.I. or not." [cited by Abel Paz,
     Durruti: The People Armed, p. 137]

   This meant that it was at union meetings and congresses where policies
   and the program for the movement were argued out:

     "[D]elegates, whether or not they were members of the F.A.I., were
     presenting resolutions adopted by their unions at open membership
     meetings. Actions taken at the congress had to be reported back to
     their unions at open meetings, and given the degree of union
     education among the members, it was impossible for delegates to
     support personal, non-representative positions." [Juan Gomez Casas,
     Anarchist Organisation: The History of the F.A.I., p. 121]

   As can be seen, open debate with their fellow workers in the union
   assemblies. In this they followed Bakunin's arguments that anarchist
   organisation "rules out any idea of dictatorship and of a controlling
   and directive power" and it "will promote the Revolution only through
   the natural but never official influence of all members of the
   Alliance." This influence would be exerted in the union assemblies, as
   the union members "could only defend their rights and their autonomy in
   only one way: the workers called general membership meetings. Nothing
   arouses the antipathy of the committees more than these popular
   assemblies. . . In these great meetings of the sections, the items on
   the agenda was amply discussed and the most progressive opinion
   prevailed. . ." This would ensure that the assemblies had "real
   autonomy" and actually were the real power in the organisation. Any
   committees would be made up of "delegates who conscientiously fulfilled
   all their obligations to their respective sections as stipulated in the
   statues," "reporting regularly to the membership the proposals made and
   how they voted" and "asking for further instructions (plus instant
   recall of unsatisfactory delegates)" [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 154, p.
   387 and p. 247]

   The anarchist revolution would be organised in an identical fashion,
   and, in Bakunin's words, "must be created by the people, and supreme
   control must always belong to the people organised into a free
   federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . . organised
   from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegations . . .
   [who] will set out to administer public services, not to rule over
   peoples." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 172]

   As can be seen, the F.A.I. (like all anarchists) influenced the class
   struggle and revolution via their natural influence in winning debates
   with their fellow workers in union assemblies. They did not seek power
   but rather influence for their ideas. To claim otherwise, to claim that
   anarchists reject open debate with their fellow workers is false.
   Instead of seeking to power -- and so limiting debates to during
   elections -- anarchists argue that people must control their own
   organisations (and so the revolution) directly and all the time. This
   means, as can be seen, we encourage open debate and discussion far more
   than those, like the SWP, who seek centralised political power for
   themselves. In such a system, the only people who debate regularly are
   the members of the government -- everyone else is just a voter and an
   order taker.

23. Do anarchists wait for "spontaneous upsurges by workers"?

   After lying about the F.A.I., they move on to lying about anarchist
   theory:

     "Anarchists instead look to spontaneous upsurges by workers. In the
     struggle anarchists will declare themselves and urge the workers on.
     They hope this will lead to the toppling of capitalism. History is
     full of mass struggles which have been able to win significant
     gains, but which have not had a clear leadership that can carry the
     struggle over to victory against capitalism."

   Nothing could be further from the truth. Their own article exposes
   their lies. They mention the C.N.T., which was organised in an
   anarchist way and in which anarchists were heavily involved. Anarchists
   from Bakunin onward have all argued in favour of organising as
   anarchists as well as organising workers and fighting for reforms in
   the here and now. For Bakunin, "the natural organisation of the masses
   . . . is organisation based on the various ways that their various
   types of work define their day-to-day life; it is organisation by trade
   association." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 139] He stressed the importance of
   anarchists being involved in unions as well as union struggle for
   reforms by direct action:

     "What policy should the International [Workers' Association] follow
     during th[e] somewhat extended time period that separates us from
     this terrible social revolution . . . the International will give
     labour unrest in all countries an essentially economic character,
     with the aim of reducing working hours and increasing salary, by
     means of the association of the working masses . . . It will [also]
     propagandise its principles . . ." [Op. Cit., p. 109]

   Indeed, he saw the labour movement as the means to create a socialist
   society:

     "The masses are a force, or at least the essential elements of a
     force. What do they lack? They lack two things which up till now
     constituted the power of all government: organisation and knowledge.

     "The organisation of the International [Workers' Association],
     having for its objective not the creation of new despotisms but the
     uprooting of all domination, will take on an essentially different
     character from the organisation of the State. . . But what is the
     organisation of the masses? . . . It is the organisation by
     professions and trades . . .

     "The organisation of the trade sections and their representation in
     the Chambers of Labour . . . bear in themselves the living seeds of
     the new society which is to replace the old world. They are creating
     not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself."
     [Bakunin on Anarchism, pp. 254-5]

   All anarchists have stressed the importance of working in and outside
   the labour movement to gain influence for anarchist ideas of direct
   action, solidarity, self-management and federalism in the here and now,
   rather than waiting for a "spontaneous uprising" to occur. As Kropotkin
   argued, "Revolutionary Anarchist Communist propaganda with Labour
   Unions had always been a favourite mode of action in the Federalist [or
   libertarian] . . . section of the International Working Men's
   Association." [Act For Yourselves, p. 119] Malatesta makes the same
   point:

     "anarchists, convinced of the validity of our programme, must strive
     to acquire overwhelming influence in order to draw the movement
     towards the realisation of our ideas. But such influence must be won
     by doing more and better than others, and will only be useful if won
     in that way.

     "Today we must deepen, develop and propagate our ideas and
     co-ordinate our forces in a common action. We must act within the
     labour movement to prevent it being limited to and corrupted by the
     exclusive pursuit of small improvements compatible with the
     capitalist system; and we must act in such a way that it contributes
     to preparing for a complete social transformation. We must work with
     the unorganised, and perhaps unorganisable, masses to awaken a
     spirit of revolt and the desire and hope for a free and happy life.
     We must initiate and support all movements that tend to weaken the
     forces of the State and of capitalism and to raise the mental level
     and material conditions of the workers. We must, in short, prepare,
     and prepare ourselves, morally and materially, for the revolutionary
     act which will open the way to the future."
     [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 109]

   Therefore, as can be seen, the SWP's assertions are totally at odds
   with the actual ideas of anarchists, as would be known by anyone with
   even a basic understanding of anarchist theory. After all, if
   spontaneous uprisings were sufficient in themselves we would be living
   in an anarchist society. As Bakunin argued "if instinct alone had been
   sufficient for the liberation of peoples, they would have long since
   freed themselves." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 254] This explains why
   anarchists organise as anarchists in groups and federations to
   influence the class struggle. We are aware of the need for
   revolutionaries to organise to influence the class struggle, spread
   anarchist ideas and tactics and present the case for revolutionary
   change. An anarchist society will not come about by accident, it must
   be consciously desired and created by the mass of the population. As
   Kropotkin argued:

     "Communist organisations . . . must be the work of all, a natural
     growth, a product of the constructive genius of the great mass.
     Communism cannot be imposed from above; it could not live even for a
     few months if the constant and daily co-operation of all did not
     uphold it. It must be free." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets,
     p. 140]

   So, clearly, anarchists see the importance of working class
   organisation and struggle in the here and now. Anarchists are active in
   industrial disputes and (as the SWP note) the anti-globalisation
   movement and were heavily involved in the anti-poll-tax and
   anti-Criminal Justice Act struggles in the UK, for example. The role of
   anarchists is not to wait for "upsurges" but rather to encourage them
   by spreading our ideas and encouraging workers to organise and fight
   their bosses and the state. It is for this reason anarchists form
   groups and federations, to influence workers today rather than waiting
   for a "spontaneous uprising" to occur. Moreover, it is quite ironic
   that the SWP say that anarchists wait for upsurges before declaring
   themselves to the masses. After all, that is what the SWP do. They turn
   up at picket lines and try and sell their paper and party to the
   strikers. Obviously, if anarchist do this, it is bad, if the SWP do it,
   then it is "revolutionary."

   Therefore, rather than believing in or waiting for "spontaneous
   upsurges" anarchists, like the SWP, spread their message, try and
   convince people to become revolutionaries. That is why there are
   numerous anarchist federations across the world, involved in numerous
   struggles and working class organisations, with magazines, papers and
   leaflets being produced and distributed. Anarchists stress the
   importance of winning people over to anarchist ideas and of giving a
   "lead" in struggle rather than as a "leadership" (which implies a
   hierarchical relationship between the mass of people and a group of
   leaders). To state otherwise, to argue we wait for spontaneous
   uprisings, is simply a lie.

   Anarchist organisations see themselves in the role of aiders, not
   leaders. As Voline argued, the politically aware minority "should
   intervene. But, in every place and under all circumstances, . . .
   [they] should freely participate in the common work, as true
   collaborators, not as dictators. It is necessary that they especially
   create an example, and employ themselves. . . without dominating,
   subjugating, or oppressing anyone. . . Accordingly to the libertarian
   thesis, it is the labouring masses themselves, who, by means of the
   various class organisations, factory committees, industrial and
   agricultural unions, co-operatives, et cetera, federated. . . should
   apply themselves everywhere, to solving the problems of waging the
   Revolution. . . As for the 'elite' [i.e. the politically aware], their
   role, according to the libertarians, is to help the masses, enlighten
   them, teach them, give them necessary advice, impel them to take
   initiative, provide them with an example, and support them in their
   action -- but not to direct them governmentally." [The Unknown
   Revolution, pp. 177-8]

   Sadly, Leninists like the SWP confuse giving a led with taking power
   themselves. They seek to take over positions of responsibility in a
   movement and turn them into positions of power which they can use to
   tell the others what to do. Instead of being the servants of the
   organisation, they become its masters. For this reason anarchist
   organisations try to influence movements from below, in the mass
   assemblies which make it up, rather than seek power.

24. Do anarchists blame workers "for being insufficiently revolutionary"?

   After creating a straw man about anarchist theory, they draw some
   thoughts from it:

     "When struggles have not spontaneously broken capitalism, anarchists
     have tended to end up blaming workers for being insufficiently
     revolutionary. So 19th century French anarchist Pierre-Joseph
     Proudhon started off talking of his 'love of the people' but ended
     up saying he 'despised' humanity because they had not overthrown
     capitalism."

   Strange that they picked Proudhon as he was not a revolutionary
   anarchist. Rather he favoured the reform of capitalism via mutual
   credit and workers' co-operatives and rejected the idea of "uprisings"
   and/or revolution (spontaneous or not). Anyone with even a limited
   knowledge of Proudhon's work would know this. In addition, Proudhon's
   last book (The Political Capacity of the Working Classes), finished on
   his death bed, was an attempt to influence the workers' movement
   towards his ideas of mutualism and federalism. Hardly to be expected
   from someone who "despised" humanity for not overthrowing capitalism.
   As examples go, the SWP is clearly clutching at straws.

   Moreover, as we argued in the [32]last section, revolutionary
   anarchists like Bakunin, Malatesta, Kropotkin, Goldman, Berkman,
   Rocker, etc., all placed a great deal of time and energy in trying to
   work within and influence workers' struggles and the labour movement in
   the here and now. They did not think that workers struggles would
   necessarily "spontaneously" break capitalism. While recognising, as we
   indicated in [33]section 10, that the class struggle changed the ideas
   of those involved, they recognised the need for anarchist groups,
   papers, pamphlets to influence the class struggle in a libertarian way
   and towards a revolution. They were well aware that "spontaneous"
   uprisings occurred but were not enough in themselves -- anarchists
   would need to organise as anarchists to influence the class struggle,
   particularly when "uprisings" were not occurring and the daily struggle
   between governed and governor, exploited and exploiter was taking less
   spectacular forms (hence anarchist support and involvement in the
   labour movement and unions like the C.N.T.).

   The SWP then move onto an even greater factual error. They claim that
   the "biggest anarchist groups today, the 'autonomists' in Europe, treat
   workers who have not fully broken with capitalist ideas as an enemy
   rather than a potential ally." Unfortunately for them, the
   "autonomists" are not generally anarchists (the name should have given
   the SWP some clue, as anarchists are quite proud of their name and
   generally use it, or libertarian, to describe themselves). Rather the
   "autonomists" are non-Leninist Marxists whose ideas (and name)
   originally came from the Marxist left in Italy during the 1960s. It is
   also probable that the various European anarchist federations (such as
   the French and Italian) and anarcho-syndicalist unions are bigger than
   the autonomists. However, without any examples of the groups meant it
   is hard to evaluate the accuracy of the SWP's claims as regards their
   size or opinions. Suffice it to say, the leading theorists of
   "autonomism" such as Toni Negri and Harry Cleaver do not express the
   opinions the SWP claim "autonomists" have.

25. Why does the history of centralised parties refute the SWP's arguments?

   The SWP admit that their analysis leaves much to be desired by
   mentioning that "[m]any anarchists understand the way that capitalism
   works and organise to change the world." In other words, if an
   anarchist points out the flaws in their argument or a reader knows an
   anarchist who does not match the SWP's distorted picture, then the SWP
   can say that they are part of the "many." Extremely handy, if
   dishonest, comment to make.

   The SWP continue by arguing that our "rejection of centralisation means
   that at critical moments their intervention in the struggle is fatally
   flawed." This is ironic. Given that their example of the benefits of
   centralisation showed the flaws in that method of organising, their
   conclusion seems without basis. Moreover, as argued above,
   centralisation is the key means by which minorities govern majorities.
   It is a tool used to impose minority rule and is not designed for other
   uses. But, then again, the SWP do aim for minority rule -- the rule of
   the "revolutionary" party over the masses. As they argue:

     "The working class needs what anarchism rejects - a clear and
     determined revolutionary party which can lead the working class as a
     whole, and is not afraid to overthrow capitalism and set up a
     workers' state."

   Yes, indeed. The examples of the current anti-capitalist movement, the
   poll tax revolt and the 1917 February Russian revolution indicate well
   that a revolutionary party works. If such a party had led the working
   class in each of these events, they would not have occurred. The
   workers would have done nothing, as the Bolsheviks desired. People
   would have paid their poll tax waiting for the trade union bureaucrats
   to act. The anti-globalisation demonstrations would not have happened
   as the "vanguard" party did not recognise their importance.

   The Russian Revolution quickly resulted in the marginalisation of the
   workers' councils by the centralised, "clear and determined" Bolsheviks
   who turned them into rubber stamps of their government, it suggests
   that the politics of the SWP leave much to be desired. Given that the
   one "success" of Leninist politics -- the Russian Revolution of October
   1917 -- created state capitalism, with workers' soviets and factory
   committees undermined in favour of party power (before, we must stress,
   the start of the civil war -- what most Leninists blame the rise of
   Stalinism on) we may suggest that anarchist ideas have been proven
   correct again and again. After all, the validity of a theory surely
   lies in its ability to explain and predict events. Anarchists, for
   example, predicted both the degeneration of both Social Democracy and
   the Russian revolution, the two main examples of Marxism in action, and
   presented coherent reasons why this would happen. Marxists have had to
   generate theories to explain these events after they have occurred,
   theories which conveniently ignore the role of Marxist politics in
   historical events.

   This, we suggest, provides the explanation of why they have spent so
   much time re-writing history and smearing anarchism. Not being able to
   discuss our ideas honesty -- for that would expose the authoritarian
   ideas of Bolshevism and its role in the degeneration of the Russian
   Revolution -- the SWP invent a straw man they call anarchism and beat
   him to death. Unfortunately for them, anarchists are still around and
   can expose their lies for what they are.

References

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