 Reply to errors and distortions in John Fisher's "Why we must further Marxism
                               and not Anarchism"

   On the Trotskyist "New Youth" webpage there is an article entitled
   [1]"Why we must further Marxism and not Anarchism" by John Fisher. This
   article contains numerous distortions of anarchist ideas and positions.
   Indeed, he makes so many basic errors that only two possible
   explanations are possible: either he knows nothing about anarchism or
   he does and is consciously lying.

   We will compare his assertions to what anarchist theory actually argues
   in order to show that this is the case.

1. Why should "the so-called Anarchistic youth of today" be concerned that
Trotskyists consider them allies?

   Fisher starts his diatribe against anarchism with some thoughts on the
   radical youth active in the anti-globalisation demonstrations and
   movements:

     "The so-called Anarchistic youth of today, year 2001, for the most
     part simply use the term 'Anarchist' as an indication of not wanting
     to go along with the 'system' in not wanting to assimilate, which is
     a giant leap forward on their part considering all their lives
     they've constantly been bombarded with the huge American Corporate
     propaganda machine. For this achievement, they are already more our
     ally than our enemy."

   It makes you wonder how Fisher knows this. Has there been a poll of
   "anarchistic youth" recently? It would be interesting to discover the
   empirical basis for this statement. Given the quality of the rest of
   the article, we can hazard a guess and say that these particular facts
   are just assertions and express wishful thinking rather than any sort
   of reality.

   Needless to say, these "anarchistic youth" had better watch out. We all
   know what happens to the "ally" of the vanguard party once that party
   takes power. Anarchists remember the fate of our comrades when Lenin
   and Trotsky ruled the "proletarian" state.

   The Russian anarchists were at the forefront of the struggle between
   the February and October revolutions in 1917. As socialist historian
   Samuel Farber notes, the anarchists "had actually been an unnamed
   coalition partner of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution." [Before
   Stalinism, p. 126] The anarchists were the "allies" of the Bolsheviks
   before they took power as both shared the goals of abolishing the
   provisional government and for a social revolution which would end
   capitalism.

   This changed once the Bolsheviks had taken power. On the night of April
   11th, 1918, the Cheka surrounded 26 Anarchist clubs in Moscow, in the
   insuring fighting Anarchists suffered 40 casualties and 500 were taken
   prisoner. The Petrograd anarchists protested this attack:

     "The Bolsheviks have lost their senses. They have betrayed the
     proletariat and attacked the anarchists. They have joined . . . the
     counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. They have declared war on
     revolutionary anarchism. . . . We regarded you [Bolsheviks] as our
     revolutionary brothers. But you have proved to be traitors. You are
     Cains -- you have killed your brothers . . . There can be no peace
     with the traitors to the working class. The executioners of the
     revolution wish to become the executioners of anarchism." [quoted by
     Paul Avrich, The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, p. 113]

   Fifteen days later similar raids were carried out in Petrograd. This
   repression, we must note, took place months before the outbreak of the
   Russian Civil War (in late May 1918). In May of that year, leading
   anarchist periodicals (including Burevestnik, Anarkhia and Golos Truda)
   were closed down by the government. The repression continued during the
   war and afterwards. Many imprisoned anarchists were deported from the
   "workers' state" in 1921 after they went on hunger strike and their
   plight was raised by libertarian delegates to the founding congress of
   the Red International of Labour Unions held that year.

   Unsurprisingly, the Bolsheviks denied they held anarchists. French
   anarchist Gaston Leval accounted how Lenin had "reiterated the charges
   made by Dzerzhinsky [founder of the Bolsheviks secret police, the
   Cheka] . . . Those in prison were not true anarchists nor idealists --
   just bandits abusing our good intentions." Leval, having gathered the
   facts, indicated this was not true, making Lenin backtrack. [No Gods,
   No Masters, vol. 2, p. 213]

   Unsurprisingly, when the libertarian delegates to the congress reported
   back on conditions in Russia to their unions, they withdrew from the
   Trade-Union International.

   In the Ukraine, the anarchist influenced Makhnovist movement also
   became an "ally" with the Bolsheviks in the common struggle against the
   counter-revolutionary White armies. The Bolsheviks betrayed their
   allies each time they formed an alliance.

   The first alliance was in March 1919 during the struggle against
   Denikin, In May of that year, two Cheka agents sent to assassinate
   Makhno (the main leader of the movement) were caught and executed. The
   following month Trotsky, the commander of the Red Army, outlawed the
   Makhnovists and Communist troops attacked their headquarters at
   Gulyai-Polye.

   Denikin's massive attack on Moscow in September 1919 saw the shaky
   alliance resumed in the face of a greater threat. Once Denikin had been
   defeated, the Bolsheviks ordered the Makhnovists to the Polish front.
   This was obviously designed to draw them away from their home
   territory, so leaving it defenceless against Bolshevik rule. The
   Makhnovists refused and Trotsky, again, outlawed and attacked them.

   Hostilities were again broken off when the White General Wrangel
   launched a major offensive in the summer of 1920. Again the Bolsheviks
   signed a pact with Makhno. This promised amnesty for all anarchists in
   Bolshevik prisons, freedom for anarchist propaganda, free participation
   to the Soviets and "in the region where the Makhnovist Army is
   operating, the population of workers and peasants will create its own
   institutions of economic and political self-management." [quoted by
   Peter Arshinov, The History of the Makhnovist Movement, pp. 177-9] Once
   Wrangel had been defeated, the Bolsheviks ripped up the agreement and
   turned their forces, once again, against their "ally" and finally drove
   them out of the Soviet Union in 1921.

   These events should be remembered when the authoritarian left argue
   that we aim for the same thing and are allies.

2. What else do people learn about when they discover anarchism is not "utter
rebellion"?

   Fisher continues:

     "In some cases, 'Anarchist' youth begin to try to learn about what
     Anarchism truly is instead of seeing it merely as utter rebellion.
     They learn Anarchism is a form of Socialism, they learn they have
     much in common with Marxists, they learn the state must be smashed,
     they learn the state is a tool of suppression used by one class
     against another."

   They learn much more than this. They learn, for example, about the
   history of Marxism and how anarchism differs from it.

   They learn, for example, about the history of Marxist Social Democracy.
   Many forget that Social Democracy was the first major Marxist movement.
   It was formed initially in Germany in 1875 when the followers of
   Lassalle and Marx united to form the Social Democratic Party of Germany
   (SPD). This party followed Marx and Engels recommendations that workers
   should form a distinct political party and conquer political power. It
   rejected the anarchist argument that workers should "abstain from
   politics" (i.e. elections) and instead, to use an expression from
   Marx's preamble of the French Workers' Party, turn the franchise "from
   a means of deception . . . into an instrument of emancipation." [Marx
   and Engels Reader, p. 566]

   Rather than confirm Marx's politics, Social Democracy confirmed
   Bakunin's. It quickly degenerated into reformism. As Bakunin predicted,
   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]

   Form the early 1890s, Social Democracy was racked by arguments between
   reformists (the "revisionist" wing) and revolutionaries. The former
   wanted to adapt the party and its rhetoric to what it was doing. As one
   of the most distinguished historians of this period put it, the
   "distinction between the contenders remained largely a subjective one,
   a difference of ideas in the evaluation of reality rather than a
   difference in the realm of action." [C. Schorske, German Social
   Democracy, p. 38]

   In 1914, the majority of social democrats in Germany and across the
   world supported their state in the imperialist slaughter of the First
   World. This disgraceful end would not have surprised Bakunin.

   Anarchists also learn about the Russian Revolution. They learn how
   Lenin and Trotsky eliminated democracy in the armed forces, in the
   workplace and in the soviets.

   They learn, for example, that the Bolsheviks had disbanded soviets
   which had been elected with non-Bolshevik majorities in the spring and
   summer of 1918. [Samuel Farber, Op. Cit., p. 24]

   They learn that at the end of March, 1918, Trotsky reported to the
   Communist Party that "the principle of election is politically
   purposeless and technically inexpedient, and it has been, in practice,
   abolished by decree" in the Red Army. [quoted by M. Brinton, The
   Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, pp. 37-8]

   They learn that Lenin opposed workers' management of production. Before
   the October Revolution he saw "workers' control" purely in terms of the
   "universal, all-embracing workers' control over the capitalists." [Will
   the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?, p. 52] He did not see it in terms of
   workers' management of production itself (i.e. the abolition of wage
   labour) via federations of factory committees. Anarchists and the
   workers' factory committees did. "On three occasions in the first
   months of Soviet power, the [factory] committee leaders sought to bring
   their model into being. At each point the party leadership overruled
   them. The result was to vest both managerial and control powers in
   organs of the state which were subordinate to the central authorities,
   and formed by them." [Thomas F. Remington, Building Socialism in
   Bolshevik Russia, p. 38]

   Lenin himself quickly supported "one-man management" invested with
   "dictatorial powers" after "control over the capitalists" failed. By
   1920, Trotsky was advocating the "militarisation of labour" and
   implemented his ideas on the railway workers.

   They learn that Leninism is just another form of capitalism (state
   capitalism). As Lenin put it, 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]

   They learn that Lenin and Trotsky argued for party dictatorship and
   centralised, top-down rule (see [2]section 4).

   They also learn that this should not come as a surprise. Anarchism
   argues that the state is a tool to allow minorities to rule and has
   been designed to ensure minority power. They learn that it cannot, by
   its very nature, be a tool for liberation -- no matter who is in charge
   of it.

3. What do anarchists think will "replace the smashed state machine"?

   Fisher now makes a common Marxist assertion. He states:

     "But what they do not learn, and never will from an Anarchist
     perspective is what is to replace the smashed state machine?"

   In reality, if you read anarchist thinkers you will soon discover what
   anarchists think will "replace" the state: namely the various working
   class organisations created by the class struggle and revolution. In
   the words of Kropotkin, the "elaboration of new social forms can only
   be the collective work of the masses." [Words of a Rebel, p. 175] He
   stressed that "[to] make a revolution it is not . . . enough that there
   should be . . . [popular] risings . . . It is necessary that after the
   risings there should be something new in the institutions [that make up
   society], which would permit new forms of life to be elaborated and
   established." [The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 200]

   Thus the framework of a free society would be created by the process of
   the revolution itself. As such, as Kropotkin put it, "[d]uring a
   revolution new forms of life will always germinate on the ruins of the
   old forms . . . It is impossible to legislate for the future. All we
   can do is vaguely guess its essential tendencies and clear the road for
   it." [Evolution and Environment, pp. 101-2] So while the specific forms
   these organisations would take cannot be predicted, their general
   nature can be.

   So what is the general nature of these new organisations? Anarchists
   have consistently argued that the state would be replaced by a free
   federation of workers' associations and communes, self-managed and
   organised from the bottom-up. In Malatesta's words, anarchy is the
   "free organisation from below upwards, from the simple to the complex,
   through free agreement and the federation of associations of production
   and consumption." In particular, he argued anarchists aim to "push the
   workers to take possession of the factories, to federate among
   themselves and work for the community" while the peasants "should take
   over the land and produced usurped by the landlords, and come to an
   agreement with the industrial workers." [Life and Ideas, p. 147 and p.
   165]

   This vision of revolution followed Bakunin's:

     "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]

   Similarly, Proudhon argued federations of workers associations and
   communes to replace the state. While seeing such activity as
   essentially reformist in nature, he saw the germs of anarchy as being
   the result of "generating from the bowels of the people, from the
   depths of labour, a greater authority, a more potent fact, which shall
   envelop capital and the State and subjugate them" as "it is of no use
   to change the holders of power or introduce some variation into its
   workings: an agricultural and industrial combination must be found by
   means of which power, today the ruler of society, shall become its
   slave." [System of Economical Contradictions, p. 399 and p. 398] What,
   decades later, Proudhon called an "agro-industrial federation" in his
   Principle of Federation.

   Kropotkin, unsurprisingly enough, had similar ideas. He saw the
   revolution as the "expropriation of the whole of social wealth" by the
   workers, who "will organise the workshops so that they continue
   production" once "the governments are swept out by the people." The
   "coming social revolution" would see "the complete abolition of States,
   and reorganisation from the simple to the complex through the free
   federation of the popular forces of producers and consumers," the
   "federation of workers' corporations and groups of consumers." The
   "Commune will know that it must break the State and replace it by the
   Federation" (which is "freely accepted by itself as well as the other
   communes"). [Words of a Rebel, p. 99, p. 91, p. 92 and p. 83]

   Thus "independent Communes for the territorial organisation, and of
   federations of Trade Unions [i.e. workplace associations] for the
   organisation of men [and women] in accordance with their different
   functions, gave a concrete conception of society regenerated by a
   social revolution." [Peter Kropotkin, Evolution and Environment, p. 79]

   In his classic history of the French Revolution he pointed to "the
   popular Commune" as an example of the "something new" required to turn
   an uprising into a revolution. He argued that "the Revolution began by
   creating the Commune . . . and through this institution it gained . . .
   immense power." He stressed that it was "by means of the 'districts'
   [of the Communes] that . . . the masses, accustoming themselves to act
   without receiving orders from the national representatives, were
   practising what was to be described later as Direct Self-Government."
   Such a system did not imply isolation, for while "the districts strove
   to maintain their own independence" they also "sought for unity of
   action, not in subjection to a Central Committee, but in a federative
   union." The Commune "was thus made from below upward, by the federation
   of the district organisations; it spring up in a revolutionary way,
   from popular initiative." [The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 200
   and p. 203]

   During the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, Kropotkin expressed his support
   for the soviets created by the workers in struggle. He argued that
   anarchists should "enter the Soviets, but certainly only as far as the
   Soviets are organs of the struggle against the bourgeoisie and the
   state, and not organs of authority." [quoted by Graham Purchase,
   Evolution and Revolution, p. 30] After the 1917 revolution, he
   re-iterated this point, arguing that "idea of soviets . . . of councils
   of workers and peasants . . . controlling the economic and political
   life of the country is a great idea. All the more so, since it
   necessarily follows that these councils should be composed of all who
   take part in the production of natural wealth by their own efforts."
   [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 254]

   Therefore, Fisher's comments are totally untrue. Anarchists have been
   pretty clear on this issue from Proudhon onwards (see [3]section I.2.3
   for a further discussion of this issue).

4. What did Trotsky and Lenin think must replace the bourgeois state?

   Fisher continues his inaccurate attack:

     "What we as Marxists explain is what must replace the smashed
     bourgeois state machine.

     "Engels explains that the state is a 'special coercive force'. So
     what must come after the bourgeoisie is overthrown to keep it down?
     As Lenin explains in the State and Revolution: the bourgeois state
     'must be replaced by a "special coercive force" for the suppression
     of the bourgeois by the proletariat (the dictatorship of the
     proletariat)' (pg 397 vol. 25 collected works) that is workers'
     democracy."

   There are numerous issues here. Firstly, of course, is the question of
   how to define the state. Fisher implicitly assumes that anarchists and
   Marxists share the same definition of what marks a "state." Secondly,
   there is the question of whether quoting Lenin's State and Revolution
   without relating it to Bolshevik practice is very convincing. Thirdly,
   there is the question of the defence of the revolution. We will discuss
   the second question here, the first in the [4]next section and the
   third in [5]section 6.

   There is a well-known difference between Lenin's work The State and
   Revolution and actual Bolshevik practice. In the former, Lenin promised
   the widest democracy, although he also argued that "[w]e cannot imagine
   democracy, not even proletarian democracy, without representative
   institutions." ["The State and Revolution", Essential Works of Lenin,
   p. 306] Clearly, he saw "democracy" in the normal, bourgeois, sense of
   electing a government who will make the decisions for the electors.
   Indeed, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is described as "the
   organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class."
   [Op. Cit., p. 337] This "vanguard" is the party:

     "By educating the workers' party, Marxism educates the vanguard of
     the proletariat which is capable of assuming power and of leading
     the whole people to Socialism, of directing and organising the new
     order, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the
     toiling and exploited in the task of building up their social life
     without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie." [Op. Cit., p.
     288]

   So the vanguard of the oppressed would become the "ruling class", not
   the oppressed. This means that "workers' democracy" is simply reduced
   to meaning the majority designates its rulers but does not rule itself.
   As such, the "workers' state" is just the same as any other state (see
   [6]next section).

   Thus, before taking power Lenin argued for party power, not workers'
   power. The workers can elect representatives who govern on their
   behalf, but they do not actually manage society themselves. This is the
   key contradiction for Bolshevism -- it confuses workers' power with
   party power.

   Post-October, the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky changed. If their works
   are consulted, it is soon discovered what they thought should "replace"
   the bourgeois state: party dictatorship.

   In the words of Lenin (from 1920):

     "In the transition to socialism the dictatorship of the proletariat
     is inevitable, but it is not exercised by an organisation which
     takes in all industrial workers . . . What happens is that the
     Party, shall we say, absorbs the vanguard of the proletariat, and
     this vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat."
     [Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 20]

   He stressed that this was an inevitable aspect of revolution,
   applicable in all countries:

     "the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an
     organisation embracing the whole of the class, because in all
     capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most
     backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so
     corrupted in parts . . . that an organisation taking in the whole
     proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It
     can be exercised only by a vanguard . . . Such is the basic
     mechanism of the dictatorship of the dictatorship of the
     proletariat, and the essentials of transitions from capitalism to
     communism . . . for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be
     exercised by a mass proletarian organisation." [Op. Cit., vol. 32,
     p. 21]

   Trotsky agreed with this lesson and argued it to the end of his life:

     "The revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party is for me not
     a thing that one can freely accept or reject: It is an objective
     necessity imposed upon us by the social realities -- the class
     struggle, the heterogeneity of the revolutionary class, the
     necessity for a selected vanguard in order to assure the victory.
     The dictatorship of a party belongs to the barbarian prehistory as
     does the state itself, but we can not jump over this chapter, which
     can open (not at one stroke) genuine human history. . . The
     revolutionary party (vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship
     surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution . . . Abstractly
     speaking, it would be very well if the party dictatorship could be
     replaced by the 'dictatorship' of the whole toiling people without
     any party, but this presupposes such a high level of political
     development among the masses that it can never be achieved under
     capitalist conditions. The reason for the revolution comes from the
     circumstance that capitalism does not permit the material and the
     moral development of the masses." [Writings 1936-37, pp. 513-4]

   Lenin and Trotsky are clearly explaining the need for party
   dictatorship over the working class. This was seen as a general lesson
   of the Russian Revolution. How many Marxists "explain" this to
   anarchists?

   Clearly, then, Fisher is not being totally honest when he argues that
   Trotskyism is based on "workers' democracy." Lenin, for example, argued
   that "Marxism teaches -- and this tenet has not only been formally
   endorsed by the whole of the Communist International in the decisions
   of the second Congress . . . . but has also been confirmed in practice
   by our revolution -- that only the political party of the working
   class, i.e. the Communist Party, is capable of uniting, training and
   organising a vanguard of the proletariat and of the whole working
   people that alone will be capable of withstanding the inevitable
   petty-bourgeois vacillations of this mass." [Op. Cit., vol. 32, p. 246]

   Lenin is, of course, rejecting what democracy is all about, namely the
   right and duty of representative bodies to carry out the wishes of the
   electors (i.e. their "vacillations"). Instead of workers' democracy, he
   is clearly arguing for the right of the party to ignore it and impose
   its own wishes on the working class.

   Trotsky argued along the same lines (again in 1921):

     "They [the dissent Bolsheviks of the Workers' Opposition] have
     placed the workers' right to elect representatives above the Party.
     As if the Party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if
     that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the
     worker's democracy!"

   He spoke of the "revolutionary historic birthright of the Party" and
   that it "is obliged to maintain its dictatorship .. . . regardless of
   temporary vacillations even in the working class . . . The dictatorship
   does not base itself at every given moment on the formal principle of a
   workers' democracy." [quoted by M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers'
   Control, p. 78]

   Needless to say, they did not explain how these lessons and arguments
   are compatible with Lenin's State and Revolution where he had argued
   that "[a]ll officials, without exception," must be "elected and subject
   to recall at any time." [The Essential Lenin, p. 302] If they are
   subject to election and recall at any time, then they will reflect the
   "passing moods" (the "vacillations") of the workers' democracy.
   Therefore, to combat this, soviet democracy must be replaced by party
   dictatorship and neither Lenin nor Trotsky were shy in both applying
   and arguing this position.

   It is a shame, then, for Fisher's argument that both Lenin and Trotsky
   also explained why party dictatorship was more important than workers'
   democracy. It is doubly harmful for his argument as both argued that
   this "lesson" was of a general nature and applicable for all
   revolutions.

   It is also a shame for Fisher's argument that the Leninists, once in
   power, overthrew every soviet that was elected with a non-Bolshevik
   majority (see [7]section 6 of the appendix on [8]"What happened during
   the Russian Revolution?"). They also repressed those who demanded real
   workers' democracy (as, for example, in Kronstadt in 1921 -- see the
   appendix on [9]"What was the Kronstadt Rebellion?" -- or during the
   numerous strikes under Lenin's rule -- see sections [10]3 and [11]5 of
   the appendix on [12]"What caused the degeneration of the Russian
   Revolution?").

   Clearly, Fisher's account of Trotskyism, like his account of anarchism,
   leaves a lot to be desired.

5. Is the "proletarian 'state'" really a new kind of state?

   Fisher, after keeping his readers ignorant of Lenin and Trotsky real
   position on workers' democracy, argues that:

     "The proletariat 'state' is no longer a state in the proper sense of
     the word, Lenin explains, because it is no longer the minority
     suppressing the majority, but the vast majority suppressing a tiny
     minority! The Proletariat suppressing the Bourgeoisie."

   If it is not a state "in the proper sense of the word" then why use the
   term state at all? Marxists argue because its function remains the same
   -- namely the suppression of one class by another. However, every state
   that has ever existed has been the organ by which a minority ruling
   class suppresses the majority. As such, the Marxist definition is
   a-historic in the extreme and extracts a metaphysical essence of the
   state rather than producing a definition based on empirical evidence.

   In order to show the fallacy of Fisher's argument, it is necessary to
   explain what anarchists think the state is.

   The assumption underlying Fisher's argument is that anarchists and
   Marxists share identical definitions of what a state is. This is not
   true. Marxists, as Fisher notes, think of a state as simply as an
   instrument of class rule and so concentrate solely on this function.
   Anarchists disagree. While we agree that the main function of the state
   is to defend class society, we also stress the structure of the state
   has evolved to ensure that role. In the words of Rudolf Rocker:

     "[S]ocial institutions . . . do not arise arbitrarily, but are
     called into being by special needs to serve definite purposes . . .
     The newly arisen possessing classes had need of a political
     instrument of power to maintain their economic and social privileges
     over the masses of their own people . . . Thus arose the appropriate
     social conditions for the evolution of the modern state, as the
     organ of political power of privileged castes and classes for the
     forcible subjugation and oppression of the non-possessing classes .
     . . Its external forms have altered in the course of its historical
     development, but its functions have always been the same . . . And
     just as the functions of the bodily organs of . . . animals cannot
     be arbitrarily altered, so that, for example, one cannot at will
     hear with his eyes and see with his ears, so also one cannot at
     pleasure transform an organ of social oppression into an instrument
     for the liberation of the oppressed. The state can only be what it
     is: the defender of mass-exploitation and social privileges, and
     creator of privileged classes." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 20]

   This means that the structure of the state has evolved to ensure its
   function. Organ and role are interwoven. Keep one and the other will
   develop. And what is the structure (or organ) of the state? For
   anarchists, the state means "the sum total of the political,
   legislative, judiciary, military and financial institutions through
   which the management of their own affairs . . . are taken away from the
   people and entrusted to others who . . .are vested with the powers to
   make the laws for everything and everybody, and to oblige the people to
   observe them, if need be, by the use of collective force." In summary,
   it "means the delegation of power, that is the abdication of initiative
   and sovereignty of all into the hands of a few." [Anarchy, p. 13 and p.
   40]

   This structure has not evolved by chance. It is required by its
   function as the defender of minority class power. As Kropotkin
   stressed, the bourgeois needed the state:

     "To attack the central power, to strip it of its prerogatives, to
     decentralise, to dissolve authority, would have been to abandon to
     the people the control of its affairs, to run the risk of a truly
     popular revolution. That is why the bourgeoisie sought to reinforce
     the central government even more. . ." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel,
     p. 143]

   This means that to use the structure of the state (i.e. centralised,
   hierarchical power in the hands of a few) would soon mean the creation
   of a new minority class of rulers as the state "could not survive
   without creating about it a new privileged class." [Malatesta, Anarchy,
   p. 35]

   Therefore, for a given social organisation to be a state it must be
   based on delegated power. A state is marked by the centralisation of
   power into a few hands at the top of the structure, in other words, it
   is hierarchical in nature. This is, of course, essential for a minority
   class to remain control over it. Thus a social system which places
   power at the base, into the hands of the masses, is not a state as
   anarchists understand it. As Bakunin argued, "[w]here all rule, there
   are no more ruled, and there is no State." [The Political Philosophy of
   Bakunin, p. 223] Therefore, real workers democracy -- i.e.
   self-management -- existed, then the state would no longer exist.

   The question now arises, does the Marxist "workers' state" meet this
   definition? As indicated in [13]section 4, the answer is a clear yes.
   In The State and Revolution, Lenin argued that the workers' state would
   be based on representative democracy. This meant, according to Bakunin,
   that political power would be "exercised by proxy, which means
   entrusting it to a group of men elected to represent and govern them,
   which in turn will unfailingly return them to all the deceit and
   subservience of representative or bourgeois rule." [Michael Bakunin:
   Selected Writings, p. 255]

   Rather than "the vast majority suppressing a tiny minority" we have a
   tiny minority, elected by the majority, suppressing those who disagree
   with what the government decrees, including those within the class
   which the state claims to represent. In the words of Lenin:

     "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." [Collected Works, vol. 42, p.
     170]

   And who exercises this "revolutionary coercion"? The majority? No, the
   vanguard. As Lenin argued, "the correct understanding of a Communist of
   his tasks" lies in "correctly gauging the conditions and the moment
   when the vanguard of the proletariat can successfully seize power, when
   it will be able during and after this seizure of power to obtain
   support from sufficiently broad strata of the working class and of the
   non-proletarian toiling masses, and when, thereafter, it will be able
   to maintain, consolidate, and extend its rule, educating, training and
   attracting ever broader masses of the toilers." He stressed that "to go
   so far . . . as to draw a contrast in general between the dictatorship
   of the masses and the dictatorship of the leaders, is ridiculously
   absurd and stupid." [Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, p. 35,
   p. 27]

   In other words, for Lenin, if the leaders exercised their dictatorship,
   then so did the masses. Such a position is pure and utter nonsense. If
   the party leaders govern, then the masses do not. And so the "workers'
   state" is a state in the normal sense of the word, with the "minority
   suppressing the majority." This was made clear by Trotsky in 1939:

     "The very same masses are at different times inspired by different
     moods and objectives. It is just for this reason that a centralised
     organisation of the vanguard is indispensable. Only a party,
     wielding the authority it has won, is capable of overcoming the
     vacillation of the masses themselves." [The Moralists and
     Sycophants, p. 59]

   Thus the party (a minority) holds power and uses that power against the
   masses themselves. Little wonder, given that, once in power, the
   Bolsheviks quickly forgot their arguments in favour of representative
   democracy and argued for party dictatorship (see [14]section 4).

   Such a transformation of representative democracy into minority class
   rule was predicted by anarchists:

     "[I]t is not true that once the social conditions are changed the
     nature and role of government would change. Organ and function are
     inseparable terms. Take away from an organ its function and either
     the organ dies or the function is re-established . . . A government,
     that is a group of people entrusted with making laws and empowered
     to use the collective power to oblige each individual to obey them,
     is already a privileged class cut off from the people. As any
     constituted body would do, it will instinctively seek to extend its
     powers, to be beyond public control, to impose its own policies and
     to give priority to its special interests. Having been put into a
     privileged position, the government is already at odds with the
     people whose strength it disposes of." [Malatesta, Anarchy, pp.
     33-4]

   Which, of course, is what happened in Russia. As we indicated in
   [15]section 4, both Lenin and Trotsky defended the imposition of party
   rule, its need to be beyond public control, by the necessities
   generated by the revolution (the "vacillations" within the masses meant
   that democracy, public control, had to be eliminated in favour of party
   dictatorship).

   Therefore, from an anarchist perspective, the so-called "workers'
   state" is still a state in "the proper sense of the word" as it is
   based on centralised, top-down power. It is based on the tiny minority
   (the party leaders) governing everyone else and suppressing anyone who
   disagreed with them -- the vast majority.

   If the vast majority did have real power then the state would not
   exist. As the "proletarian" state is based on delegated power, it is
   still a state and, as such, an instrument of minority class rule. In
   this case, the minority is the party leaders who will use their new
   powers to consolidate their position over the masses (while claiming
   that their rule equals that of the masses).

6. Do anarchists "hope the capitalists do not make any attempts of
counterrevolution"?

   Fisher continues his inventions:

     "Instead of organising an instrument for the coercion of the
     bourgeois by the proletariat, the Anarchists wish to simply abolish
     the state overnight and hope that the capitalists do not make any
     attempts of counterrevolution, an absurd and unrealistic idea."

   Yes, it would be, if anarchists actually believed that. Sadly for
   Fisher, we do not and have stated so on many, many, many occasions.
   Indeed, to make an assertion like this is to show either a total
   ignorance of anarchist theory or a desire to deceive.

   So do anarchists "hope that the capitalists do not make any attempts of
   counterrevolution"? Of course not. We have long argued that a
   revolution would need to defend itself. In the words of Malatesta:

     "But, by all means, let us admit that the governments of the still
     unemancipated countries were to want to, and could, attempt to
     reduce free people to a state of slavery once again. Would this
     people require a government to defend itself? To wage war men are
     needed who have all the necessary geographical and mechanical
     knowledge, and above all large masses of the population willing to
     go and fight. A government can neither increase the abilities of the
     former nor the will and courage of the latter. And the experience of
     history teaches us that a people who really want to defend their own
     country are invincible: and in Italy everyone knows that before the
     corps of volunteers (anarchist formations) thrones topple, and
     regular armies composed of conscripts or mercenaries disappear. . .
     [Some people] seem almost to believe that after having brought down
     government and private property we would allow both to be quietly
     built up again, because of a respect for the freedom of those who
     might feel the need to be rulers and property owners. A truly
     curious way of interpreting our ideas!" [Anarchy, pp. 40-1]

   Elsewhere he argued that a revolution would "reorganise things in such
   a way that it will be impossible for bourgeois society to be
   reconstituted. And all this, and whatever else would be required to
   satisfy public needs and the development of the revolution would be the
   task of . . . al kinds of committees, local, inter-communal, regional
   and national congresses which would attend to the co-ordination of
   social activity . . . The creation of voluntary militia . . . to deal
   with any armed attacks by the forces of reaction to re-establish
   themselves, or to resist outside intervention by countries as yet not
   in a state of revolution." [Life and Ideas, pp. 165-6]

   He was not alone in this position. Every revolutionary anarchist argued
   along these lines. Bakunin, for example, clearly saw the need to defend
   a revolution:

     "Commune will be organised by the standing federation of the
     Barricades. . . [T]he federation of insurgent associations, communes
     and provinces . . . [would] organise a revolutionary force capable
     of defeating reaction . . . it is the very fact of the expansion and
     organisation of the revolution for the purpose of self-defence among
     the insurgent areas that will bring about the triumph of the
     revolution." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 170-1]

   And:

     "[L]et us suppose . . . it is Paris that starts [the revolution] . .
     . Paris will naturally make haste to organise itself as best it can,
     in revolutionary style, after the workers have joined into
     associations and made a clean sweep of all the instruments of
     labour, every kind of capital and building; armed and organised by
     streets and quartiers, they will form the revolutionary federation
     of all the quartiers, the federative commune. . . All the French and
     foreign revolutionary communes will then send representatives to
     organise the necessary common services . . . and to organise common
     defence against the enemies of the Revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 178-9]

   He stressed the need to organise and co-ordinate the defence of the
   revolution by armed workers:

     "Immediately after established government has been overthrown,
     communes will have to reorganise themselves along revolutionary
     lines . . . In order to defend the revolution, their volunteers will
     at the same time form a communal militia. But no commune can defend
     itself in isolation. So it will be necessary for each of them to
     radiate outwards, to raise all its neighbouring communes in revolt .
     . . and to federate with them for common defence." [No Gods, No
     Masters, vol. 1, p. 142]

   Similarly, the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist CNT union recognised the
   need for defending a revolution in its 1936 resolution on Libertarian
   Communism:

     "We acknowledge the necessity to defend the advances made through
     the revolution . . . So . . . the necessary steps will be taken to
     defend the new regime, whether against the perils of a foreign
     capitalist invasion . . . or against counter-revolution at home. It
     must be remembered that a standing army constitutes the greatest
     danger for the revolution, since its influence could lead to
     dictatorship, which would necessarily kill off the revolution. . .

     "The people armed will be the best assurance against any attempt to
     restore the system destroyed from either within or without. . .

     "Let each Commune have its weapons and means of defence . . . the
     people will mobilise rapidly to stand up to the enemy, returning to
     their workplaces as soon as they may have accomplished their mission
     of defence. . . .

     "1. The disarming of capitalism implies the surrender of weaponry to
     the communes which be responsible for ensuring defensive means are
     effectively organised nationwide.

     "2. In the international context, we shall have to mount an
     intensive propaganda drive among the proletariat of every country so
     that it may take an energetic protest, calling for sympathetic
     action against any attempted invasion by its respective government.
     At the same time, our Iberian Confederation of Autonomous
     Libertarian Communes will render material and moral assistance to
     all the world's exploited so that these may free themselves forever
     from the monstrous control of capitalism and the State." [quoted by
     Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, p. 110]

   If it was simply a question of consolidating a revolution and its
   self-defence then there would be no argument. Rather the question is
   one of power -- will power be centralised, held by a handful of leaders
   and exercised from the top downwards or will it be decentralised and
   society run from the bottom-up by working people themselves?

   Fisher distorts the real issue and instead invents a straw man which
   has no bearing at all on the real anarchist position (for further
   discussion, see sections [16]H.2.1 and [17]J.7.6).

7. Are Anarchists simply "potential Marxists"?

   After creating the straw man argument that anarchists have not thought
   about counter-revolution, Fisher asserts:

     "The majority of our 'Anarchist' friends never thought about this
     little loop hole, and as for the rest of them they shrug it off, or
     say something to the effect of the armed proletariat themselves will
     stop capitalist reaction, which, an armed proletariat in reality, is
     a proletarian 'state'! In conclusion our 'Anarchists' are simply
     potential Marxists who need access to genuinely revolutionary
     ideas."

   Of course, anarchists have thought about this and have came up with, as
   Fisher puts it, "the armed proletariat." Indeed, anarchists have held
   this position since the days of Bakunin, as we proved in the [18]last
   section.

   Moreover, from an anarchist perspective, an "armed proletariat" is not
   a "state" as there is not minority of rulers telling the proletariat
   what to do (see [19]section 5). The "proletariat" state of Lenin was a
   real state simply because it was the Bolshevik party leaders who were
   telling the armed forces of the state what to do and who to repress
   (including striking workers, anarchists and rebelling peasants). These
   forces, we must note, were organised from the top-down, with the
   government appointing officers. It was an "armed proletariat" only in
   the same sense that the bourgeois army is an "armed proletariat" (i.e.
   working class people made by the rank and file, fought the battles and
   followed the orders decided upon by a handful of people at the top).

   So, if defence of a revolution by the armed proletariat makes you a
   Marxist then Bakunin, Malatesta, Kropotkin, Goldman, Berkman, Makhno
   and Durruti were all "Marxists"! As is every revolutionary anarchist.
   Needless to say, this is impossible and, as such, Fisher's "little loop
   hole" in anarchism does not exist.

   Clearly, Fisher has no understanding of anarchist thought and prefers
   invention rather than research.

   Our Trotskyist then states that:

     "It is our job, as Marxists to explain these ideas to them!"

   In other words, the Marxist job is to explain anarchist ideas to
   anarchists and call them Marxism. How impressive!

8. Is Marxism scientific?

   Fisher finishes by arguing that:

     "As Lenin states, 'the ideas of Marx are all powerful, because they
     are true'! We have the science of dialectics on our side, not
     idealism, mysticism or theology. Our philosophy is solid as a rock."

   Firstly, dialectics is not a science. Secondly, quoting Lenin on the
   wonders of Marxism is like quoting the Pope on the joys of Catholicism.
   Thirdly, the only rocks around are in the heads of Trotskyists if they
   really think this nonsense about anarchism.

   Simply put, a science involves investigating the facts of what is being
   investigated and generating theories based on those facts. Clearly, our
   Trotskyist has not bothered to discover the facts about anarchism. He
   has made numerous assertions about anarchism which are contradicted by
   the works of anarchism. He has, as such, ignored the fundamental nature
   of science and has, instead, embraced the approach of the fiction
   writer.

   As such, if Fisher's article is an example of the "science" of Marxism
   then we can safely state that Marxism is not a science. Rather it is
   based on invention and slander.

9. What does the Russian Revolution tell us about Trotskyism?

   Our Trotskyist decides to quote another Trotskyist, Ted Grant, on the
   dangers of anarchism:

     "However, the setting up of soviets and strike committees --
     important as it is -- does not solve the fundamental problem facing
     the Russian workers. In and of themselves, soviets solve nothing.
     What is decisive is the party that leads them. In February 1917, the
     workers and soldiers set up soviets -- a step of enormous importance
     to the revolution. But in the hands of the Mensheviks and SRs they
     were reduced to impotence. . . In Germany in November 1918, the
     soviets were in the hands of the Social Democratic leaders who
     betrayed the revolution and handed power back to the bourgeoisie.
     Under these conditions the soviets soon dissolved, and were merely
     transient phenomena. The same would have happened in Russia, if it
     had not been for the Bolshevik Party and the leadership of Lenin and
     Trotsky."

   Grant is, of course, just paraphrasing Trotsky in his analysis.
   Moreover, like Trotsky's, his comments indicate the fundamentally
   dictatorial nature of Trotskyism.

   Simply put, if the "leadership" of the party is the key to soviet
   power, then if the workers' reject that leadership via soviet elections
   then the Trotskyist is on the horns of a dilemma. Without party
   "leadership" then the soviets will be "reduced to impotence" and be
   "merely transient phenomena." To maintain this party "leadership" (and
   ensure the soviet power) then the democratic nature of the soviets must
   be undermined. Therefore the Trotskyist is in the ironic situation of
   thinking that soviet democracy will undermine soviet power.

   This dilemma was solved, in practice, by Trotsky during the Russian
   Revolution -- he simply placed party "leadership" above soviet
   democracy. In other words, he maintained soviet power by turning the
   soviets into "nothing." He argued this position numerous times in his
   life, when he was in power and after he had been expelled from Russia
   by Stalin.

   In 1920, we find Trotsky's thoughts on this subject in his infamous
   work Terrorism and Communism. In this work he defended the fact of
   Communist Party dictatorship:

     "We have more than once been accused of having substituted for the
     dictatorship of the Soviets the dictatorship of our party. Yet it
     can be said with complete justice that the dictatorship of the
     Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the
     party. It is thanks to the clarity of its theoretical vision and its
     strong revolutionary organisation that the party has afforded to the
     Soviets the possibility of becoming 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 there is nothing accidental, and in reality there
     is no substitution at all. The Communists express the fundamental
     interests of the working class. It is quite natural that, in the
     period in which history brings up those interests, in all their
     magnitude, on to the order of the day, the Communists have become
     the recognised representatives of the working class as a whole."

   Needless to say, this is incredulous. How can the replacement of soviet
   power by party power mean the "supremacy of labour"? It means the
   supremacy of the Bolshevik party, not "labour." The transformation of
   the soviets from genuine democratic organs of working class
   self-government ("shapeless parliaments of labour") into an instrument
   of Bolshevik party rule ("the apparatus of the supremacy of labour")
   cannot be seen as a victory of democracy, quite the reverse. The
   dictatorship of the Bolshevik party marginalised the soviets just as
   much as the events of the German Revolution. The only difference is
   that under the Bolsheviks they maintained a symbolic existence.

   Therefore, rather than the "leadership" of the Bolshevik party ensuring
   soviet rule it meant, in practice, party dictatorship. The soviets
   played no role in the decision making process as power rested firmly in
   the hands of the party.

   This position was repeated in 1937, in his essay "Bolshevism and
   Stalinism." There he argued that a "revolutionary party, even having
   seized power . . . is still by no means the sovereign ruler of
   society." He stressed that "the proletariat can take power only through
   its vanguard" and that "[t]hose who propose the abstraction of the
   Soviets from 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."
   [Trotsky, Stalinism and Bolshevism]

   Therefore, we have the same position. Without party dictatorship, the
   soviets would fall back into the "mud of reformism." He argued that the
   "fact that this party subordinates the Soviets politically to its
   leaders has in itself abolished the Soviet system no more than the
   domination of the conservative majority has abolished the British
   parliamentary system." [Op. Cit.] This analogy is flawed for two
   reasons.

   Firstly, the parliamentary system is based on a division between
   executive and legislative functions. Lenin argued that the soviet
   system would, like the Paris Commune, abolish this division and so
   ensure "the conversion of the representative institutions from mere
   'talking shops' into working bodies." [The Essential Lenin, p. 304] If
   the decisions being made by the Soviets have been decided upon by the
   leaders of the Bolshevik party then the soviets represent those
   leaders, not the people who elected them. As in the bourgeois system,
   the representatives of the people govern them rather than express the
   wishes of the majority. As such, the idea that the Soviets are organs
   of working class self-government has been abolished. Instead, they are
   mere "talking shops" with power resting in the hands of the party
   leadership.

   Secondly, when elections take place parliamentary system it is
   generally recognised that the majority of representatives can become
   the government. The system is therefore based on the assumption that
   the government is accountable to parliament, not parliament to the
   government. This means that the "domination" of the majority within
   Parliament is an expression of parliamentary democracy. The majority
   party does not maintain that only its existence in power ensures that
   parliamentary democracy can continue, therefore necessitating the
   suppression of elections. However, that is the position of Trotsky (and
   of Lenin) and, let us not forget, the actual actions of the Bolsheviks.

   That this is the logical conclusion of Trotsky's position can be seen
   when he discusses the Kronstadt rebellion of March 1921 (see the
   appendix on [20]"What was the Kronstadt Rebellion?"). In 1938, he
   argued that the "Kronstadt slogan" was "soviets without Communists."
   [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 90] This, of course, is factually
   incorrect. The Kronstadt slogan was "all power to the soviets but not
   to the parties" (or "free soviets"). From this incorrect assertion,
   Trotsky argued as follows:

     "to free the soviets from the leadership [!] of the Bolsheviks would
     have meant within a short time to demolish the soviets themselves.
     The experience of the Russian soviets during the period of Menshevik
     and SR domination and, even more clearly, the experience of the
     German and Austrian soviets under the domination of the Social
     Democrats, proved this. Social Revolutionary-anarchist soviets could
     only serve as a bridge from the proletarian dictatorship. They could
     play no other role, regardless of the 'ideas' of their participants.
     The Kronstadt uprising thus had a counterrevolutionary character."
     [Op. Cit., p. 90]

   Interesting logic. Let us assume that the result of free elections
   would have been the end of Bolshevik "leadership" (i.e. dictatorship),
   as seems likely. What Trotsky is arguing is that to allow workers to
   vote for their representatives would "only serve as a bridge from the
   proletarian dictatorship"!

   This argument was made (in 1938) as a general point and is not phrased
   in terms of the problems facing the Russian Revolution in 1921. In
   other words Trotsky is clearly arguing for the dictatorship of the
   party and contrasting it to soviet democracy. As he put it elsewhere,
   the "revolutionary party (vanguard) which renounces its own
   dictatorship surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution."
   [Writings 1936-7, pp. 513-4] So much for "All Power to the Soviets" or
   "workers' power"!

   Clearly, Grant's and Trotsky's arguments contain a deeply undemocratic
   core. The logic of their position -- namely that party rule is
   essential to ensure soviet rule -- in practice means that soviet rule
   is replaced by party dictatorship. To include the masses into the
   decision making process by soviet democracy means loosening the tight
   political control of the party on the soviets and allowing the
   possibility that opposition forces may win in the soviets. However, if
   that happens then it means the end of soviet power as that is only
   possible by means of party "leadership." This, in turn, necessitates
   party dictatorship to maintain "soviet power", as Trotsky and Lenin
   admitted and implemented.

   Simply put, Grant's argument shows the dangers of Trotskyism, not of
   anarchism.

10. Do anarchists reject "leadership"?

   Grant continues by asserting the need for leaders:

     "Some say that such a party is not necessary, that the workers do
     not need a party, that it leads to bureaucracy, and so on. That is a
     fatal error. The whole history of the international workers'
     movement shows the absolute need for a revolutionary party.
     Anarchism is an expression of impotence, which can offer no way out.
     Of course, the reason why some honest workers and young people turn
     towards anarchism is because of their revulsion against Stalinism
     and the bureaucratic and class collaborationist policies of the
     existing leaderships, both on the political and trade union field.
     This is understandable, but profoundly mistaken. The answer to a bad
     leadership is not no leadership, but to create a leadership that is
     worthy of the workers' cause. To refuse to do this, to abstain from
     the political struggle . . . amounts to handing over the workers to
     the existing leaders without a struggle. In order to combat the
     policy of class collaboration, it is necessary to pose an
     alternative in the form of a revolutionary policy, and therefore
     also a revolutionary tendency."

   There are so many fallacies in this argument it is hard to know where
   to start.

   Firstly, we should note that anarchists do not deny the need for
   "leaders" nor for the need for revolutionaries to organise together to
   influence the class struggle. To claim so indicates a failure to
   present the anarchist case honestly.

   In the words of Kropotkin:

     "The idea of anarchist communism, today represented by . . .
     minorities, but increasingly finding popular expression, will make
     its way among the mass of the people. Spreading everywhere, the
     anarchist groups . . . will take strength from the support they find
     among the people." [Words of a Rebel, p. 75]

   Bakunin considered it essential that revolutionaries organise and
   influence the masses. As he put it, "the chief aim and purpose of this
   organisation" is to "help the people towards self-determination on the
   lines of the most complete equality." [Michael Bakunin: Selected
   Writings, p. 191]

   Therefore, to claim that anarchists deny the need for political
   organisation and "leaders" is a misrepresentation. As we argue in more
   depth in [21]section J.3, this is not the case. However, we must stress
   that anarchists do not seek positions of power ("leadership") in
   organisations. Rather, they aim to influence by the power of our ideas,
   "through the natural, personal influence of its members, who have not
   the slightest power." [Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 193] This is because
   "leadership" positions in hierarchical organisations are a source of
   corruption, which is the second major fallacy in Grant's argument.

   While acknowledging that the existing leadership of working class
   organisations and unions are "bureaucratic and class collaborationist,"
   he does not indicate why this is so. He argued that we need a "new"
   leadership, with the correct ideas, to replace the current ones.
   However, the "policy of class collaboration" within these leaderships
   did not develop by chance. Rather they are a product of both the
   tactics (such as electioneering, in the case of political parties) and
   structures used in these organisations.

   Looking at structures, we can clearly see that hierarchy is key. By
   having leadership positions separate from the mass of workers (i.e.
   having hierarchical structures), an inevitable division develops
   between the leaders and the rank and file. The "leaders" are insulated
   from the life, interests and needs of the membership. Their views
   adjust to their position, not vice versa, and so "leadership" becomes
   institutionalised and quickly becomes bureaucratic. As Bakunin argued,
   the only way to avoid bureaucracy is to empower the rank and file.

   Taking the Geneva section of the IWMA, Bakunin noted that the
   construction workers' section "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." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 246] To combat this
   bureaucracy, "the construction workers . . . sections 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. . ." [Op. Cit., p. 247]

   This did not mean the end of organisations and committees, but rather a
   change in power. 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)." [Ibid.] Power would be in the hands of the rank and file,
   not the committees.

   It is in this context that anarchists try and give a lead. 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." [Op. Cit., p. 154 and p. 387] This influence would be
   exerted in the basic assemblies of the organisation, which would retain
   the power to decide their own fates: "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." [Op. Cit., p. 415]

   Only in this way can the bad effects of having institutionalised
   "leadership" positions be avoided. Instead of ignoring "bad"
   leadership, anarchists encourage workers to rely on their own
   initiative and power. They do not "refuse" to combat bureaucratic
   leaderships, rather they combat them from below by ensuring that
   workers manage their own affairs directly. As such, anarchists are well
   aware of the need "to pose an alternative in the form of a
   revolutionary policy, and therefore also a revolutionary tendency."

   As Malatesta argued, we "do not want to emancipate the people; we want
   the people to emancipate themselves." Thus anarchists "advocate and
   practise direct action, decentralisation, autonomy and individual
   initiative; they should make special efforts to help members [of
   popular organisations] learn to participate directly in the life of the
   organisation and to dispense with leaders and full-time functionaries."
   However, "[w]e must not wait to achieve anarchy, in the meantime
   limiting ourselves to simple propaganda . . . We must seek to get all
   people . . . to make demands, and impose itself and take for itself all
   the improvements and freedoms that it desires as and when it reaches
   the state of wanting them, and the power to demand them: and in always
   propagating all aspects of our programme, and always struggling for its
   complete realisation, we must push people to want always more and to
   increase its pressures, until it has reached complete emancipation."
   [Life and Ideas, p. 90, p. 125 and p. 189]

   He, like all anarchists, stressed there were different kinds of
   "leadership":

     "It is possible to direct ["lead"] through advice and example,
     leaving the people -- provided with the opportunities and means of
     supplying their own needs themselves -- to adopt our methods and
     solutions if these are, or seem to be, better than those suggested
     and carried out by others. But it is also possible to direct by
     taking over command, that is by becoming a government and imposing
     one's own ideas and interests through police methods." [The
     Anarchist Revolution, p. 108]

   Unsurprisingly, anarchists favour the first way of "leading" people and
   utterly reject the second.

   Clearly, then, anarchists do not reject being "leaders" in the sense of
   arguing our ideas and combating the influence and power of bureaucratic
   leaderships. However, this "lead" is based on the influence of our
   ideas and, as such, is a non-hierarchical relationship between
   anarchist activists and other workers. Thus Grant's argument is a straw
   man.

   Finally, his comment that "whole history of the international workers'
   movement shows the absolute need for a revolutionary party" is simply
   false. Every example of a "revolutionary party" has been a failure.
   They have never created a socialist society which, let us not forget,
   was their aim. The first "revolutionary" party was Social Democracy.
   That quickly became reformist and, in Germany, crushed the revolution
   that broke out there after the end of the First World War.

   The Bolshevik party was no better. It soon transformed itself for being
   the masses servant to being its master (see [22]section 4). It
   justified its repression against the working class in terms of its
   "vanguard" position. When it degenerated into Stalinism, Communist
   Parties across the world followed it -- no matter how insane its
   policies became.

   This is unsurprising. As the anarchists of Trotwatch explain, such a
   "revolutionary" 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]

   Therefore, while anarchists stress the need to organise as anarchists
   (i.e. into political associations) they reject the need for a
   "revolutionary party" in the Marxist or Leninist mold. Rather than
   seeking power on behalf of the masses, anarchist groups work within the
   mass organisations of the working class and urge them to take and
   exercise power directly, without governments and without hierarchy. We
   seek to win people over to our ideas and, as such, we work with others
   as equals using debate and discussion to influence the class struggle
   (see [23]section J.3.6 for fuller details and a discussion of how this
   differs from the Trotskyist position).

   Therefore, Grant's whole argument is flawed. Anarchists do not reject
   "leadership," they reject hierarchical leadership. We clearly see the
   need to organise politically to influence the class struggle but do so
   as equals, by the strength of our ideas. We do not seek to create or
   seize positions of "leadership" (i.e. power) but rather seek to ensure
   that the masses manage their own affairs and are influenced by
   political tendencies only in-so-far as they can convinced of the
   validity of the politics and ideas of those tendencies.

11. Does the Spanish Revolution show anarchism is flawed?

   As usual, Grant brings up the question of the Spanish Revolution:

     "The anarchist workers of the CNT played a heroic role in the
     struggle against fascism. In July 1936, they rose up and stormed the
     barracks armed with just sticks and knives and a few old hunting
     rifles, and beat the fascists. They set up soviets and established a
     workers' militia and workers' control in the factories. The CNT and
     the POUM (a centrist party led by ex-Trotskyists) were the only
     power in Barcelona. Soon the whole of Catalonia was in the hands of
     the workers. The bourgeois President of Catalonia, LLuis Companys,
     actually invited the CNT to take power! But the anarchist leaders
     refused to take power, and the opportunity was lost."

   Needless to say, this summary leaves much to be desired.

   Firstly, there are the factual errors. The offer to the CNT from
   Companys occurred on July 20th, immediately after the uprising had been
   defeated in Barcelona. The situation in the rest of Catalonia, never
   mind Spain, was unknown. This fact is essential to understanding the
   decisions made by the CNT. Faced with a military coup across the whole
   of Spain intent on introducing fascism, the outcome of which was
   unknown, the CNT in Barcelona was in a difficult situation. If it tried
   to implement libertarian communism then it would have had to fight both
   the fascist army and the Republican state. Faced with this possibility,
   the CNT leaders decided to ignore their politics and collaborate with
   other anti-fascists within the bourgeois state. Needless to say, to
   fail to indicate the rationale for the CNT's decision and the
   circumstances it was made in means to misinform the reader. This does
   not mean the CNT's decision was correct, it is just to indicate the
   extremely difficult circumstances in which it was made.

   Secondly, Grant lets the cat out of the bag by admitted that he sees
   the Spanish Revolution in terms of the anarchist "leaders" taking
   power. In this he followed Trotsky, who had argued 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"]

   Clearly, rather than the masses taking power, Trotskyism sees the party
   (the leaders) having the real power in society. Trotsky stressed this
   fact elsewhere when he argued that "[b]ecause the leaders of the CNT
   renounced dictatorship for themselves they left the place open for the
   Stalinist dictatorship." [Writings 1936-7, p. 514]

   The "anarchist leaders" quite rightly rejected this position, but they
   also rejected the anarchist one as well. Let us not forget that the
   anarchist position is the destruction of the state by means of
   federations of workers associations (see [24]section 3). The CNT
   refused to do this. Which, of course, means that Grant is attacking
   anarchist theory in spite of the fact that the CNT ignored that theory!

   As we have discussed this issue in depth elsewhere (namely sections
   [25]I.8.10, [26]I.8.11 and [27]section 20 of the appendix [28]"Marxists
   and Spanish Anarchism") we will leave our discussion of the Spanish
   Revolution to this short summary.

12. Does anarchism believe in spontaneous revolution?

   Grant now asserts another erroneous position to anarchism, namely the
   believe that anarchists believe in spontaneous revolution. He presents
   the case of the Albanian revolution:

     "However, the most crushing answer to anarchism is the fate of the
     Albanian revolution. The Albanian masses, as the result of the
     nightmare brought about by the collapse of so-called market reform .
     . . rose up in a spontaneous insurrection. With no organisation, no
     leadership, and no conscious plan, they stormed the barracks with
     their bare hands. The army fraternised . . . opened the gates of the
     barracks and distributed arms. Revolutionary committees were
     established, especially in the South, and the armed militias spread
     the revolt from one town to the next. The forces of reaction sent by
     Berisha were routed by the armed people. There was nothing to stop
     them from entering Tirana . . . But here the importance of
     leadership becomes clear. Lacking a revolutionary leadership with
     the perspective of taking power and transforming society, the
     insurrectionists failed to take Tirana."

   Needless to say, the argument for "a revolutionary leadership" with
   "the perspective of taking power" is hard to combine with his later
   argument that "the Russian workers, basing themselves on their own
   strength and organisation, [must] take power into their own hands." As
   Grant has argued throughout this excerpt, the idea that the workers
   should take power themselves is utopian as a Bolshevik style leadership
   is required to seize power. As Trotsky and Lenin made clear, the
   working class as a whole cannot exercise the "proletariat dictatorship"
   -- only party dictatorship can ensure the transition from capitalism to
   communism. In summary, Grant is simply using the old Bolshevik
   technique of confusing the party with the proletariat.

   However, this is besides the point. Grant asserts that anarchists think
   a revolution can occur spontaneously, without the need for anarchists
   to organise as anarchists and argue their politics. Needless to say,
   anarchists do not hold such a position and never have. If we did then
   anarchists would not write books, pamphlets and leaflets, they would
   not produce papers and take part in struggles and they would not
   organise anarchist groups and federations. As we do all that, clearly
   we do not think that an anarchist society will come about without us
   trying to create it. As such, Grant's comments misrepresent the
   anarchist position.

   This can be seen from Bakunin, who argued that the 1848 revolutions
   failed "for a quite a simple reason: it was rich in instinct and in
   negative theoretical ideas . . . but it was still totally devoid of the
   positive and practical ideas which would have been necessary to build a
   new system . . . on the ruins of the bourgeois world. The workers who
   fought for the emancipation of the people in June were united by
   instinct, not ideas . . . This was the principal cause of their
   defeat." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 104]

   Given that "instinct as a weapon is not sufficient to safeguard the
   proletariat against the reactionary machinations of the privileged
   classes," instinct "left to itself, and inasmuch as it has not been
   transformed into consciously reflected, clearly determined thought,
   lends itself easily to falsification, distortion and deceit." [The
   Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 215] Therefore, the "goal, then, is
   to make the worker fully aware of what he [or she] wants, to unjam
   within him [or her] a steam of thought corresponding to his [or her]
   instinct." This is done by "a single path, that of emancipation through
   practical action," by "workers' solidarity in their struggle against
   the bosses," of "collective struggle of the workers against the
   bosses." This would be complemented by socialist organisations
   "propagandis[ing] its principles." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 102, p. 103
   and p. 109]

   Hence the need for anarchists to organise as anarchists:

     "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]

   Thus only by arguing for anarchist ideas can anarchy come about. It
   will not come about by accident. Hence Malatesta's argument that
   anarchists "must deepen, develop and propagate our ideas and
   co-ordinate our forces in a common action. We must act within the
   labour movement . . . [W]e must act in such a way that it contributes
   to preparing for a complete social transformation. We must work with
   the unorganised .. . . masses to awaken the 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. . . And then, in the revolution, we must take an energetic
   part (if possible before and more effectively than the others) in the
   essential material struggle and drive it to the utmost limit in
   destroying all the repressive forces of the State. We must encourage
   the workers to take possession of the means of production . . . and of
   stocks of manufactured goods; to organise immediately, on their own, an
   equitable distribution of . . . products . . . and for the continuation
   and intensification of production and all services useful to the
   public. We must . . . promote action by the workers' associations, the
   co-operatives, the voluntary groups -- to prevent the emergence of new
   authoritarian powers, new governments, opposing them with violence if
   necessary, but above all rendering them useless." [The Anarchist
   Revolution, pp. 109-110]

   A key process of this is to argue that workers' organisations become
   the framework of the new world and smash the state. As Murray Bookchin
   argues, anarchists "seek to persuade the factory committees, assemblies
   [and other organisations created by people in struggle] . . . to make
   themselves into genuine organs of popular self-management, not to
   dominate them, manipulate them, or hitch them to an all-knowing
   political party." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 217] For more discussion
   of this issue, see section J.7.5 ([29]What is the role of anarchists in
   a social revolution?).

   Clearly, rather than being "the most crushing answer to anarchism," the
   fate of the Albanian revolution rather shows how inaccurate Grant's
   argument is. Anarchists do not hold the position he states we do, as we
   have proven. Anarchists were not surprised by the fate of the Albanian
   revolution as the Albanian workers were not fighting for an anarchist
   society but rather were protesting against the existing system. The
   role of anarchists in such a struggle would have been to convince those
   involved to smash the existing state and create a new society based on
   federations of workers' associations. That this was not done suggests
   that anarchist ideas were not the dominant ones in the revolt and,
   therefore, it is hardly surprising that the revolution failed.

References

   1. http://www.newyouth.com/archives/theory/why_marxism_not_anarchism_20010107.asp
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app4
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI2.html#seci23
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app5
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app6
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app5
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append41.html#app6
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append41.html
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append42.html
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append43.html#app3
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append43.html#app5
  12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append43.html
  13. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app4
  14. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app4
  15. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app4
  16. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH2.html#sech21
  17. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ7.html#secj76
  18. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app6
  19. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app5
  20. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append42.html
  21. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ3.html
  22. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app4
  23. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ3.html#secj36
  24. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append35.html#app3
  25. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI8.html#seci810
  26. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI8.html#seci810
  27. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append32.html#app20
  28. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append32.html
  29. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ7.html#secj75
