The labor movement and misguided path of anarchism !
(Part 1)
Anarchism is a reformist approach , but pretending to be leftist , within the global labor movement . A kind of protest orientation against the manifestations of power and consequences of the existence of capital , which is by no means anti-capitalist . It´s reconciled with the relation of sale & purchase of labor force or at least not contradictory . It´s not demanding abolition of wage labor and doesn´t offer no prospects for the liberation of the working masses from the hell of wage-slavery and has no range of vision for the liberation of mankind from the existence of exploitation , classes and the sufferings of class society . If so here and there , it does propound something in the form of a pattern , under the alternative name or exit , it´s just a mirage of deception and deadend . Its recommended prescriptions , manifestos and solutions and even in the most radical state is mooring on some shiftings in the structure of the capital order and deeply atopic changes in work and production planning and division of labor in capitalism . Anarchism always and in all periods has played such role of harmful misguided path for the labor movement of countries . Its fluctuation curve , interference and effects in different parts of the world and different time intervals hasn´t been the same . In the second half of nineteeth century , in the First Workers´ International appeared such a fielding force had the support of large sections of European workers with itself and this support became turned into the mechanism for the disintegration of the united lines of anti-capitalist working class . Anarchism stood up against the radical and anti-capitalist communism of the proletariat and its interventions more than anything ended in favor of the bourgeoisie . In the twentieth century with the boom of the social-democracy and syndicalist movement in Europe and totalitarian of populist communism and nationalist leftism “anti-imperialism” in other parts of the world , anarchism´s scope of the became more limited , but simultaneous the paralyzed situation of the radical communism of abolition of wage labor that provided a necessary possibility for anarchism´s activities too . It was in the absence of the effective existance of a conscious anti-capitalist movement of proletariat that in the last decades of the twentieth century until today , determining factors such as the acceleration of the decline of capitalist method of production , developing , deepning and increasing crisis in the cycle of reproduction of global capital , the growing failure of the Social Democracy and right-wing reformism of unions , decay and extinction of bourgeois communism whether in the form of state-capitalism and whether in the form of parties on the spectrum of left-wing reformism , all together has created different conditions than a century ago . Anarchism has tried to make the most of this situation , but unfortunately such uprising and struggle that we haven´t been witnessing much less about the communism of abolition of wage labor of the working class until now . In such a situation the various anarchist sects especially tendencies such as anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism , for reasons that I will explain later , has become once again as a serious danger for the rise of Marxian communism of abolition of wage labor and the radical anti-capitalist orientation of the world labor movement . Endangering anarchism as always and matched what in the First International , Paris Commune or Spanish Civil War happened , it´s such drilling misguided path and deception in front of the working class and its movement all around the world . Anarchism does the same with this movement as other parties and tendencies of the left-wing reformism spectrum or the whole left-wing opposition of the bourgeoisie do . The inverted embellishment of capitalism , separation of various forms of deprivation of rights , oppression , felonies and the human catastrophes are the coercive result of this system , from the relation of labor and capital , schismatism in the labor movement and hang every separated part to a sect of bourgeois reformism , protecting the foundation of relation of wage slavery that will be targeted by class-struggle of the working masses and creating capital-oriented and reformist illusory horizons in front of workers , and in a word , forgery and distortion of the facts of the class-struggle of the proletariat are common chapters of the record of this whole spectrum . Different anarchist circles and sects with all their colorful orientations , beliefs and social practices , all of them are enoughly partners in all the chapters and clauses of this record . Anarchism for this reason and in this direction and from the beginning has been targeted by the radical criticism of Marxian communism based on abolition of wage labor . A critique which its radical growing continuity will be an integral part of the praxis of the class-struggle and the anti-capitalist struggle of the working class in any situation and in any period . The purpose of this article isn´t to examine the past and present of anarchism in detail or describing the aspects of its existence . The anti wage labor approach´s critical autopsy of the social and class basis of the anarchism´s approach is the only thing we follow briefly .
Anarchism and its reformist critique of capitalism
All anarchist circles speak of opposition to capitalism , but none of them see the capitalism as the real cause of all the imposed miseries on the working masses or humanity in general . No anarchist or anarchist group don´t analyze the rootly cause of hunger and poverty , oppression and catastrophic gender discrimination , massive child mortalities and depriving billions of people from education , hygiene and healthcare , drinking water and minimum subsistence needs , corruption, prostitution and addiction, catastrophic destruction of the environment , wars and the Holocaust and other miseries of the world in depth of the relation of sale & purchase of laborforce . They´re protesting the bourgeoisie of all countries in all these matters , but in any of these cases they don´t attack the capitalist method of production or the relation of surplus value producing as the only source and real rootly cause of all these disasters . The basis of the differences between anarchism and the Marxian communism of abolition of wage labor is here and starts from this point . Bakunin , a prominent activist in the anarchist movement and at the same time the most radical person of this approach in his time , and in my opinion to this day , exactly he separated his own way from Marx and communism of proletariat at this crucial moment . Bakunin didn´t partake in some of the-blown bourgeois illusions of people like Proudhon and at least , Bakunin didn´t seemingly sanctify private property and didn´t summarize socialism as based on the equitable distribution of property , capital and wealth . He didn´t clumsily repeat the conclusions of pre-Marx economists and wasn´t resisting any radical criticism of the bourgeois political economy , and on the contrary , he also didn´t consider the raising workers´ wages as a major calamity, and didn´t condemn the workers´ strikes and more Catholic than the Pope , he didn´t aim at cursing every uprising of the working masses to obtain daily economic demands . Bakunin wasn´t , despite some “Slavic” nationalist affiliations , not captured by racist reactionary thinking , anti-woman and anti-Semitic of suchlike his mentor (Proudhon) . He had these differences with Proudhon but a very central issue drove him at all levels and areas of struggle into the abyss with the Proudhon and put next to them . Bakunin seemingly had radical views on the role of some institutions of capitalist social order and its ultrastructure . Theories that , under this radical guise deceived a large mass of workers to the point that sometimes his popularity, even compared to Marx , among some illlusioned workers, was in his favor .!! The important thing is that all this radicalism under the pressure of his explaination of capital and capitalist society that smoked and blew into the air , just like a bubble of deception . In a private conversation with Marx , he raised issues that each in appearance , abstractly , separately and by itself , such a brick in the building of socialism of abolition of wage labor and is considered an element in the articulation of a society free from wage slavery !! some points about rejection of parliament , party and constituent assembly , any kind of institution under the name of people´s representation and dominate them , anti-government and emphasizing the evil of any form of government and opposition to any authority and will beyond the thought , decision and authority of individuals , free and decisive interference of citizens in their own destiny and some other issues that all of which are conditions for human liberation from the domination of wage slavery , the existence of classes and any form of class exploitation . Bakunin made all these points and insisted on their urgency but their realization , even the most sublime and transparent state of this realization , nowhere and by no means , doesn´t relate or postpone to eradicate the capitalist system . Bakunin did unlearn the internal link between the dynamics of human achievement of these great historical achievements on the one hand and the abolition of wage labor on the other hand completely , and kept away from attention . Marx in the maze of mentioned dialogue criticizes Bakunin´s comments in the most cases ,deeply and cruelly . A dialogue that misleads and confuses the ignorant , optimistic and delusional witness in relation to both sides of the story . On the one side , they see Bakunin in the trenches of anti-government , partisanship and denial of authority , war against legalism and civilizationism , carries the banner of human liberation from any kind of restraint bears its burden !! and on the other side sees Marx who , very stubborn and ruthless , starts to demolition of the all decorated and decesive shelters and overthrow of the raised flag in the hands of Bakunin !! The battlefield is very misleading and dusty . “It appears that Marx sits in the chair of defending law and order, government and authority ”!!! and “ Bakunin issues an indictment for breaking all the chains of captivity ” !!!
What is going on and why do the trenches look like this ? The answer very simple . The first one that departs from the critique of the relation of surplus-value producing and considers all these chains as organic components of capital , and looking to abolition of capitalism and the real breaking the chains of all these shackles which depends on cancellation of wage labor . The second one that is Bakunin doesn´t recognize capital and doesn´t follow to anatomize civil society in political economy . He doesn´t consider the state , law and order , civic structure and institutions of social order to be the sub-disciplines of capital , and drowned in sea of illusion and ignorance that isn´t able to see and understand the correlation between the disappearance of these and the cancellation of relation of surplus value producing . This is where all of Bakunin´s exciting human slogans turns against itself , emerges from the survival of capitalism and become the hand-baton of the owners of hell of capitalism against the inhabitants of hell , the masses of workers . The matter of Marx´s opposition is true with these seemingly human enchanting dreams and fantasies , he doesn´t defend of the state and authority , law and any ultra-human being order , he explores and points the real and dynamic material process of revolutionary cleansing of all these shackles . The trenches of class battle haven´t been moved , rather , the true manifesto of class warfare must be pondered and putting into practice by anti-wage labor approach . Bakunin , all anarchists and everything that has taken the name of anarchism , talk about the abolition of the government and removal of law , canceling of authority and abolitionment of dominant order . In meantime chanting alogans against capitalism and shouting the need to strike iron fists at capital too . But anarchism and anarchists do not explore the roots of salvery and misery of the workers in their separation from work , in preventing them from interfering in their work process and all these in the existence of wage labor , but instead , they turn to the government , law and institutions of political power and they seek the root of all miseries in these beings . The anarchists do not see capital as a coercive force and god-like and the creator of the existing state and the anti-human order , but they suppose and cosider the latter ( state , law and institution…) such creators of the first accursed !!
“ But the government debate is separate and I say with decisive assurance the government is evil . The evil that historically necessary that the necessity of its existence in the past is as great as the necessity of its future destruction . The government isn´t a society but one of its historical forms , rough and yet abstract , historically , the state has been linked to violence , usurpation and looting and in other words , it´s the result of war and conquest . From its inception , it´s been a sacred support for animal power and relentless oppression . Even in the most democratic countries , such as the United States and Switzerland , the government has always affirmed the monopoly of the minority and the practical subjugation of the majority ”
( Selected works of Bakunin , “Bakunin and collectivist anarchism” Bryan Morris )
Contemporary government in Bakunin´s view and in the view of no anarchist that capital isn´t determined in the form of a set of institutions , organs and law the octopus-like devices which paving the path for reproduction and the survival of the value-added cycle of capital . Anarchists do not see and consider the state as the power of coercion and repression of capital , the power to organize the order of relation of sale&purchase labor force , the power to shape and guide the thoughts of the working masses , the power to defend private property and power that buried the labor movement in the graveyard of civil order , the power of education and culture planning and ethics corresponding to the reproduction and survival of the relation of surplus value producing , the power to adjust the ratio between the necessary and surplus labor according to the needs of sel-expansion and survival of wage slavery , and in one word the domination of pervasive power of capital . Based on the doctrine of anarchism the state isn´t considered the mechanism of the order of economic and political , legal and civil , cultural and social of capital !! conversely just it´s a special machine of violence , aggression and looting , the sacred support point of animal force and the machine of producing oppression and coercion !! By having the same characteristics and temperaments which humiliates the majority and honors the minority !! it empowers the capitalists and deprives the workers from power ! Bakunin , by his inverted perception and inference , didn´t pursue the struggle against the state and power in the form of struggle against capitalism and nor he did see the struggle against capitalism as essentially a real war against the existence of the relation of sale&purchase of labor force . In this regard , he had no choice unless to seek the realization of his ideals in the paths of reformism and instead of inviting the working masses for a class struggle against wage slavery , but to line them up against the consequences of existence and ultra-structures of the capitalist order . “ It´s obvious that despit the existence of the government , man doesn´t achieve freedom and does not benefit from the real advantages of society , groups , and members of secret societies . Man sees happiness only when there´s no more government . It´s clear that all the public interests of society that the government claims to represent , in fact , it´s nothinng but opposing and denial of the real benefits of local areas , municipalities , associations and a large number of people who have become citizen of the government . The governmment is a large slaughterhouse and cemetery that hypocritely , in which all powers and initiatives of the nation are slaughtered and buried ”
( Selected works of Bakunin , “Bakunin and collectivist anarchism” Bryan Morris )
The labor movement and misguided path of anarchism !
(Part 2)
According to the intellectual system of anarchism , the root of all the calamities of human life is summed up in the existence of the government , a government that it´s not representing the structure of the order of capital , and the path to terminate its historical existence doesn´t cross the battlefiled of capitalism . A government that can be got rid of its evil without destroying wage labor !! Imaginations that have been adorned with radical-like embellishments . But in the world of facts that except for some kind of exciting leftist-like reformism full of deception and seduction of aberration ,they´re nothing else . A fact that it was bitter for Bakunin to accept it , and it´s still bitter for today´s anarchists . They consider it the worst slander against themselves and to be acquitted of this charge they present an extensive track record of their adhering to wrath , demand for overthrow , lawlessness , disinterest for parties and coercive anti-government . Bakunin did this with Marx in a conversation too . He was citing to his own irreconcilable and coersive revolutionary to prove his stubborn honesty in pursuit of ideals . What he didn´t see it was that merely listing glorious dreams and hanging them on weapons , there´s no cure for pain . Every step to free the workers from the pressure of exploitation , oppression and deprivation of freedom , the pressure of the government and the authorities , exclusion of rights and captivities depends on a conscious struggle against the basis of wage labour . Merely anti-government , lawbreaking and avoidance of references , no radical change can be made in the hell of wage slavery , and so far capitalism exists, the phenomenon of government will not be buried in the cemetery of history , power of authority isn´t revoked and the shackles of law aren´t broken from the workers´ hands . All of these are constantly being reproduced , possibly change their shapes and deformation of them becomes the tools of the bourgeoisie to deceive the working masses . Why Bakunin and all other anarchists always, in explaining their views , start with the concept of goverment and law or power in all periods ? The correct answer must be found in the way of idealistic cognition and their empiristic view to history , society and human being . Despite anarchists´ pandemonium and noise about their anti-god and negation of religion but in practice they´re unable to understand a radical materialist perception of history . Anarchists view history through the eyes of the “Stirners” and the so-called Young Hegelians . They don´t start to understand history from the real human being and they don´t follow human in the process of producing means of subsistence and the method of production . They don´t study the course of historical developments in the maze of the fate of forms and methods of production . Human society that they aren´t recognizing as definite stages in the development of production methods and economic structures of each phase . They don´t recognize the thoughts and beliefs , the legal and political , civil and social ultrastructures of each age as the organic manifestations of the dominant labour and production process of that age , and the history of human societies is not considered as the history of class struggle . Instead of all these facts , anarchists only have focused on the component of domination . As a result , they believe the source of all misery can be found in the existence of power and attack this dominance in the image of God and religion , government and law , or any form of power that hinders the development of conscious awareness and free will of human beings . Marx was talking about the young Hegelians : “ the domination of religion was taken for pre-assumption and gradually , any dominant relations was declared the religious relations and it was transformed into a religion , a religion of law , a religion of government , and so on …… ” (The German Ideology)
Bakunin writes in describing his understanding of history :“ the gradual evolution of the material world is perceptible to all , and as well as the evolution of organic life and the historical evolution of the growing individual and collective consciousness of mankind . These are all natural movements , from simple to complex , from low to high , From bottom to top and consistent with our daily experiences and thus consistent with our natural logic and in accordance with the specific rules of our mind that are formed with the help of these experiences and expanded and in other words , the mental and intellectual re-creation of this evolution or its continuation in thought ”
( Excerpts from Bakunin ,Maximov , quoted from Bakunin and Collective Anarchism )
In this narrative of history , what has no place and no subject , it´s the real dynamic of the material evolution of human societies , the internal relation between the dominant production forms of each period and the social and political formulations , thoughts , beliefs and cultural prevail in society , existence of classes , class struggle , the range of views , expectations and awareness of each class or other abvious facts of human life history . Bakunin´s view of history is the same as Hegel´s . Hegel´s absolute spirit is casting a shodow over his intellectual structure and his controversial love for freedom can not break the sanctity of pure reason . He struggles with all his might to replace nature with the absolute idea , but he only substitutes the names . the result of his efforts is to rotate in the fence of destinies again . A fence that remains unbroken and only its architecture is manipulated .
“ Man as the final product of nature , continues to flourish individually and socially on earth . a move that can be said to be the work of nature , the move and life of nature . Man´s relation with this all-encompassing nature may not be external . It may not be a relation of slavery or war . Man has it in himself and nothing outside of nature . In may opinion , it´s quite obvious that any rebellion by man against what I call universal causation or its pervasive nature is impossible . It´s surrounded by the human environment . It´s outside and inside him and forms his wholle being ” ( the same book , Quoted from the same source)
The appearance of the story is that Bakunin is the opposite of Hegel , he considers the phenomenon of government as pure evil . But let us not forget that the anarchist Striner and many “young Hegelians” , in spite of all his sharp criticisms of Hegelianism , nevertheless with the same theme of the Hegelian look , they explored history , society and social phenomena . Bakunin opposes any kind of government but his conception of the state felt the heavy shadow of a Hegelian vision . The institution of political power, in the depths of his mind, does not arise from the mode of production of the day, nor from the structure of the political order of the productive infrastructure and the machine of violence of the ruling class, but is an evil force beyond all this . He calls the state, God, and capitalism equal sides of the evil triangle, and substitutes the struggle against this triangle for the class struggle . It is noteworthy that in addition to these allegations, he goes to the defending forces of this triangle of power to curse them . In his search he reaches “Marxists” and liberals !! He puts them together and sees the existence of the former as much as the founder of the latter and causes the survival of evil !!. Bakunin’s deeply empirictic, anti-Marxian, and non-materialist understanding of the evolution of history did only not simply plunge his knowledge of state, law, or power into the abyss of ignorance , rather, it was closing the path of deep and materialist acquaintance to all the issues related to the class struggle to him . He was unable to know capital and did not understand the contradictory existence of capitalist production , and failed to comprehend the proletariat, its social existence, its class characteristics, and its special historical role . For him, the working class had the same place and position as any other exploited mass . Basically, under the pressure of eclectic idealism, he recorded and buried in his mind the concept of social class, the concept of social class, class exploitation and the real war between classes in history in a deeply disturbed and fiction imaginary way . Instead of a materialist understanding of the basic relations between the classes, he was always thinking of exploitation, oppression, inequality, injustice, oppression and tyranny . For him, the slave, the peasant, and every toiling element, every oppressed person in every historical context, played the same role that the radical conscious proletariat could play !! He did not understand the class struggle and especially the historical capacity, burden and mission of the war between the worker and the capitalist, and with ignorant simplification he equated it with any kind of struggle between the exploiter and the exploited, the oppressor and the oppressed . Its with this view that he found the Russian peasantry and the anti-wage proletariat equal in terms of historical role-playing, and perhaps preferred the former to the latter .
“ The Russian people are closer to socialism than you think , Russian peasants have a revolutionary tradition and must play a major role in human liberation and the Russian Revolution is rooted in all the characteristics of its people . In the seventeenth century the peasants of the southeast rose up, and in the eighteenth century Pokachev led a peasant uprising in the Volga region for two years . The Russians do not give up the riot and believe that the seedlings of human progress have been irrigated with human blood . They do not give up playing with fire, just as setting Moscow on fire to defeat Napoleon was a purely Russian phenomenon . It is in such flames that the human race is freed from bondage ” . (Conversation between Marx and Bakunin, m. Cranston )
The ranks of the great warriors of human liberation in the evaluation of Bakunin are very long, and the Russian peasant occupies only a small part of it . The miraculous power of the “Lumpen Proletariat” in this last history war is the greatest and most irreplaceable . Evildoers and looters, and in a word, any force that is violent, rebellious and armed, is as involved in this battle as the communist proletariat may be able to play . We see that the Bakunin´s ideal revolution and the vast majority of anarchists have nothing to do with the anti-capitalist line-up of the working class against the capitalist system . The war of the rebellious, the angry, and the oppressed is against the oppressors , and it´s this revolution that gives birth to the ultimate liberation of all humanity !! Bakunin, in denying the existence of classes, in denying the alignment of the two basic classes of capitalist society against each other , and in replacing war between classes with strife between the masses and the rulers , leaves no stone unturned, and even goes so far as to speak that he considers the class struggle worthy of the worst reproaches and condemnations . In his critique of the program of the German Social Democratic Party, he says : “ There is something else in that program that is extremely disgusting to us revolutionary anarchists, who unconditionally support the liberation of all people . They present the proletariat, the workers of the world, as a class, not the masses of the people. Do you know what that means ? This means a new aristocracy, nothing more, nothing less, the aristocracy of urban and industrial workers and their separation from the millions of rural workers and those who, according to the predictions of the German Social Democrats, are to be practically oppressed by the so-called Great People’s Government. ….”
Let’s not forget that the debate isn´t over the German Social Democratic Party and its program and its main flaws . The conversation is about Bakunin’s narrative of the working class, the class struggle and the concept of class . In the darkness of his empirictic methodology , in spite of the world of revolutionary controversy, Bakunin did not fully understand the dynamics of the class struggle of the period of capitalist domination and the role of the radical proletariat against wage labor , and he didn´t understand the importance of organizing the anti-capitalist council of the working masses in this campaign . He views everything from a completely populist and positivist point of view and he cultivated the glorious slogans of human liberation in his fantasies and was preparing a campaign to achieve this goal , he was trying to gather around him a fighting army from the poor peasants and the lumpen of the proletariat and finally the workers , troops , a significant portion of which do not have the capacity to fight the wage slavery system . Their gatherings shows no sign of an organized anti-capitalist workers’ council movement, and at best its only useful to listen to the orders of a handful of insurgent generals, to make empty subversive gossip, and to keep warm the supra-class idealistic anti-regime´s claims . These commanders and divisions also have another duty , that if everywhere there are workers who working to organize themselves against the exploitation of capitalism and the foundation of wage labor , the anarchists, by raising the false banner of anti-stateism and issuing indictments of statehood, tyranny against the communists, sow the seeds of ignorance, illusion, and division among workers , and make it easier for the bourgeoisie to disintegrate . The role they played in the First Workers’ International and , as far as they could , intensified the contradictions within this international working-class anti-capitalist organization . In the absence of at least a materialist and Marxian understanding of capitalism, Bakunin could not have been a radical, conscious and revolutionary activist of the labor movement against this system and for its destruction . He didn´t understand the alphabet of the importance of organizing the anti-capitalist working class council and did not understand the subject matter, role and philosophy of this organizing or this organized anti-capitalist movement , and he was thinking , for this very simple reason that , there was no alternative to get out of the hell of exploitation and savagery and wage slavery . Bakunin’s socialism was nothing more than a form of capitalist labor planning and production , and his familiar version of the establishment of this socialism was ultimately summed up in federalism and local self-government of the citizens of capitalist society .
“ The real organization of the people from the bottom up. From associations and communes. Federalism, then, begins with the organization of the lowest social nuclei and continues to the top, becoming a socialist political institution. A free and spontaneous organization of public life ! ” (Selected works of Bakunin, Maximov)
The labor movement and misguided path of anarchism !
(Part 3 )
Bakunin sought to establish a society in which the government, the party, the ruler and the priest apparently did not rule , he refuse to explore the secret of how such a society would emerge and what social class would form it and in which process , organization and demands of the day, which narrative of anti-regime, and finally with which movement will this class establish itself ? “ The oppressors fight against oppression and put an end to the existence of government, force and religion, and this struggle must be continued ” . This is all that Bakunin understands about the class struggle and the future of this struggle, and according to this understanding, he proposes the model of federalism for the future free society of mankind . He sees this federalism as a condition that guarantees human freedom in socialism !! why ? All Bakunin´s effort to theories is answering this question . His socialism is neither a society of people freed from the hell of wage labor, nor a movement that is the locomotive of power to establish this society . What he is preparing to establish , arises in the absence of these basic preconditions , and that is why his future society, as far as his socialism is concerned , not only does not show any sign of human freedom , but can be a hell of tyranny , coercion and power . This socialism naturally has to resort to mechanisms other than being socialism to guarantee the freedom of individuals !! and Bakunin saw federalism as a good example of this outfit . I will explain the subject a little more . The socialist society of the proletariat emerges from the heart of the socialist movement of the nationwide council against the wage labor of the working-class masses . It´s this movement that, during its growth, expansion and maturity, builds the ossification of the future society . The vast mass of the organized working class leads to a deeper understanding of capitalism , it delegates to workers the growing power of the struggle against capital, lining them up in all spheres of social life against capital and makes the war against all oppression, deprivation of rights and capitalist crimes an integral part of the global chain of class-war against the foundation of the capitalist universe . When this movement overthrows the bourgeois state, it has all the knowledge , power , and cognition necessary to plan socialist work , production , and life , and to end the historical existence of wage labor . The victory of this movement is the victory of the proletariat , which , as an organized and united class , is consciously working on the architecture of the new society . A class of people determined to dissolve the state, abolish wage labor , abolish classes and class society , a class that can basically not be liberated if it does not liberate all of humanity , a class with radical chains that sees the free growth of everyone as dependent on the free growth of every human being , a class with these characteristics, in the high orbit of consciousness and cognition and in the high stage of the struggle against wage labor after the victory over the bourgeoisie, begins to establish its socialism . The question is, if this socialism does not guarantee the real freedom of individuals, then what form of productive and social order is supposed to bring this freedom to human beings ? All anarchists speak of the necessity of completing socialism with freedom, because their socialism is neither the product of the struggle of this movement nor the product of the victory of such a movement, but the result of the union of peoples who have joined hands only under the banner of hollow supra-class anti-government . The mass of people who are not going to end wage labor , but if they are workers they should own their own means of work and if they are peasants they should own land . The anarchist socialism is the federalist aggregation of people who work together from below to form a federation to create a society of smallholders . “ The land belongs only to those who cultivate it with their own hands, that is, to agricultural communities. Capital and all means of production are for the workers, for the trade unions, the future political organization must be a free workers’ federation ”. (Bakunin , selected works, Maximov)
Bakunin´s Federal Socialism has another important indicator . Anyone who does not work will not have the right to live in it Socialism was supposed to do work voluntarity in its beginning , but Bakunin expells all the unemployed from his socialist society . The irony is that anarchism fills everywhere with the slogan of freedom and the principle of human liberation from all restraints, but Bakunin’s ideal society locks the shackles of work very ironically and unbreakably on the hands and feet of mankind . It should also be noted that anarchists, or in fact sects of anarchism , along with all the slogans , here and there , also speak of the negation of restraint.But what they say in this regards , like all the words of their other martian hubbub , has nothing to do with the material dynamics of obliteration of restrictions on work . At the top and bottom of their discourse in this realm , too , does not emerge from the framework of anti-capitalist order without any radical and class struggle against the basis of wage labor .
The past and present of anarchism !
So far , most of our discussion has focused on Bakunin´s beliefs , opinions and perspectives . There´re reasons for this , and in turn they need to be explained . Bakunin isn´t even a prominent figure in the anarchist movement . Years before him , people like William Godwin had started talking about it . The world´s labor movement in countries such as Switzerland , France and Austria , Netherlands and Spain , Italy and even some Latin American countries from the late eighteenth century and the first and second decades of nineteeth century dealth with the formation and expression of anarchist tendencies . Among the movement’s celebrities , Proudhon is apparently the first to officially call himself an anarchist and promote anarchist ideas . Moreover , an important indicator of anarchist circles in all periods has been their lack of ossification and class , ideological or even political cohesion .This fragmentation and incoherence has progressed to such an extent that it´s now so widespread that it´s difficult to generalize the set of views, horizons, goals, or policies of any circle, even it makes difficult to any number of these circles, to other populations on the spectrum of anarchism too .Anarchist activists in this case, too, deliver a world full of illusions and inversions under a seemingly ornate flag to working masses . Their preference is that they hate ideology, party building and leadership and they have no special mission for themselves , they don´t intend to lead the struggles of the masses , and they see themselves as members of the protesting community of the world and everyone has the right to define themselves as an anarchist according to their perceptions and tastes . They make a list of these sentences. Allegations that are not true , and even assuming they´re not false , it raises the question then, what exactly is anarchism ? How to recognize and judge this phenomenon ? The fact is that anarchist sects have similarities and homogeneities, despite the lack of political and theoretical ossification and all the variations and divisions they carry within their spectrum . Common features and theoretical foundations that identify anarchism as an approach within the labor movement and distinguish it from other approaches . The existence of these homogeneities certainly does not negate the multitude of differences and distinctions between different groups in this spectrum , but it marginalizes them and reduces them very little . Anarchists make up large heterogeneous populations from religious to secular , anarcho-communism to anti-communism, individualist to anti-individualism , anarcho-syndicalist to syndicalist , and the like . Many are staunch supporters of the use of force and forced overthrow , and many are “peace-loving” and opposed to the use of force . Prominent activists in the movement , including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, have edified the assassination and a large crowd has also condemned it , some , like Proudhon, have insisted on strikes and workers’ struggles to raise wages, and many groups have defended any attempt by the working masses to organize strikes or any level of struggle to improve their working and living conditions . There are all these differences and distinctions , but the important point is that the vast majority of anarchist sects and circles , in spite of all the above differences, eventually become organic within an articulation , albeit without class and social restraint . This article is a reference to the writings and opinions of Bakunin and a number of other leaders of anarchism and exactly refer to this detail . This is exactly the point , it´s based on its knowledge and gains its validity from this knowledge . All that we have quoted from Bakunin’s discussions , critiques, and theories are the beliefs, methods of cognition , strategies , and horizons shared by all or the vast majority of the branches , tendencies , and activists of the anarchist movement . Another important point can be raised and emphasized in this regards . That Bakunin was more radical and militant than most active figures and former and later anarchist theorists . A factor that in turn validates our approach to critical autopsy . In other words , the present article hasn´t based its analysis and beliefs on the more right and compromising circles of the anarchist movement , or the individual and fragmented views of this or that anarchist , on the contrary , it has referred to the common indicators of different groups and to the most radical orientations among them . The negation of the radical materialist and Marxian narrative of the process of the evolution of history , reactionary resistance to the Marxian theory of the dissection of civil society in political economy , a full-fledged populist explanation of society , omiting the basic relations between opposing social classes and distorting the expression of these relations with concepts and words such as oppressors and oppressed or rulers and subordinates and the like , refusal from accepting the fact that the history of all human societies has been the history of class struggle , the populist and reactionary analysis of capitalism instead of the radical Marxian anatomy of this mode of production and social relations , replacing the anti-capitalist struggle of the working class with issues such as anti-government, apostasy and supra-class lawbreaking , the bourgeois and reformist narrative of socialism and the propaganda of a society consisting of scattered federations of smallholders instead of communism of wage labor abolition and the Nationwide Council for Socialist Labor and Production Planning , individualism , reactionary naturalism , and the pursuit of freedom and the interests of the individual outside of the realm of freedom and authority and the interests of everyone’s life , to see the reactionary party above the working masses as equal to the organized council anti-wage labor movement of the proletariat and other such cases , all and sundry are issues that are common to all or most of the tendencies and anarchist circles .
The existence of these commonalities and agreements among the spectrum of anarchist forces is a fact that a very brief review of the words and writings of the past and present flag bearers of this movement confirms and clarifies .
“Noam Chomsky,” the most prominent figure of the day , says in response to a question about anarchism : “ I think it means searching for and recognizing the structures of power, hierarchy and domination in all aspects of life and questioning it . If there is no good reason for this , they´re all illegitimate and must be dismantled in order to expand the scope of human freedom . This includes political power, ownership and management , parent-child relationships , our involvement in the fate of future generations (what I think is the fundamental moral necessity of the environmental movement) , and more ”
( Chomsky’s interview with the editor of Red and Black Revolution Magazine )
We see that Chomsky´s anarchism , like Bakunin or any other activist of this movement , traces the roots of exploitation and deprivation of liberty and all injustices and oppressions only in the depths of the equations of domination and the existence of government or institutions , relations and social superstructures . It´s noteworthy that Chomsky puts it all together like chains , in the same way that Bakunin equated God , government , and capitalism with equal sides of a triangle !! Here , too, parental dominance over children , the role of government , and our involvement in the destiny of future generations are all at the root . The only thing that has no place or role in his roots seeking is the material foundation of society and in our time is the mode of capitalist production .Some may see Chomsky’s reference to property as a sign of his concern for the economic underpinnings of social issues .This notion is awkward , delusional and misleading . The contemporary anarchist philosopher absolutely does not accept anything called the method of material production or the principle of the anatomy of society and its ultrastructures in political economy . He does not see relations , appointments and institutions of domination in any way as transcendental methods of material production . To conclude that ownership is a subordinate category of the capitalist mode of production, and to equate it with the form of production of any historical period is pure inversion . All that I have said before about Bakunin and Stirner’s deep empirictic understanding of the material evolution of history , the same is true about Chomsky too . He does not see government , law , ethics , culture, traditions , social values , thoughts and ideologies as social systems derived from the mode of material production in different historical periods . On the contrary , he considers all this to be the result of the demagoguery of governments , where the institution of government or other social superstructures has sprung from every age does not occupy an important place in his way that it is known . The analysis of all events begins with domination, ends with domination, and the mere struggle against force and domination replaces the class struggle and the struggle to destroy wage-slavery relations . Somewhere in the same interview , Chomsky separates the whole engineering of thoughts, metamorphoses, and perhaps the alienation of the present man from their real source , that is , capital and the relation of the sale and purchase of labor power , and refers to the mere function of governments . There´s no doubt that governments have the most complex plans and organizations to do this . The important point is that the state, the law , the constitution and the parliament are all institutions of the capitalist order , and what they are doing is the charter of the existence of capital and the needs of the capitalist cycle of reproduction . Chomsky’s explanation of capitalism is another form of the same populist reversals of Bakunin and other anarchists . He says : “ What is called capitalism is basically a corporate trading system with pervasive and highly irresponsible authoritarianism that exercises enormous control over the economy , political systems , and cultural and social life , and works closely with powerful governments in the domestic economy and the international community is widely involved .This is especially true of the United States, contrary to popular belief . The rich and affluent are no longer willing to obey the rules of the market as they used to , but they find them useful to ordinary people. ” (the same conversation )
Departing from the relation of the buying and selling of labor power and the production of surplus-value in capitalist analysis for Chomsky , like all other anarchists, is a rejected method . Instead of referring to such a method , everything should be summarized in the business and authoritarianism of some companies . Capitalism means this , and perhaps the way to fight capitalism must also be sought in curbing the authoritarianism and extravagance of these companies . Chomsky , like Bakunin , nowhere engages himself in the necessity of recognizing capitalism , and shows no interest in exploring the relation of capital as the basis for the existence of this system . it doesn´t consider the relationship between current events, their background and fate, and the value-added cycle of capital in each country and the world . It doesn´t consider the historical developments of capitalism as an inherent dynamic compulsion of the relation of surplus-value production . The emergence of multinational corporations and their superior position in the existing structure of this system is not considered as a link in the chain of coercive centralism of the capitalist production method , and it ignores the basic relations between the basic classes of the present society and, like any other anarchist, shouts and calls for the struggle against authoritarianism and the deception of a handful of large multinational corporations . Chomsky also pulls the whole process of the emergence, growth and empowerment of these huge financial giants out of the equations of power of the rulers , in his exploratory calculations, it is not capital that creates power , but it´s power that gives birth to capital and the great giants of capitalism . “ Occasionally there are moments in the history of human life in which power relations make social and economic arrangements possible . The term world order can really be applied to them .”
(Conflicting views on the world system , N . Chomsky)
Chomsky is´nt usually a talker of capitalism, a wage-based society, the basic classes within that society, the war between the classes and the way and the well of the working class in this war and the kind of issues that exist. . Maybe he thinks talking about them is a waste of time . Instead, from the great poles of power, the looting, the rebellious conflict between the imperialists and the peoples and the “people’s governments”, the imperialism’s fear of radical nationalism !! And especially the alliance and unity between nationalist governments loyal to the interests of their people !! discusses the miraculous power of mass democracy, the anti-democracy of the imperialists and the like . He works in these fields as much as he can. He has lectures, articles and books , in these works, including “Ideology and Power” and “Conflicting Perspectives” ,Chomsky transcends all the confusing boundaries of populist theory . As an anarchist, he sees the root of all human calamities in governments , and most of the time, he praises the anti-imperialist and popular role-playing of these governments , even the most predatory ones .!!! Somewhere in his analysis he speaks of the fear of US imperialist rulers that governments such as Iran and Saudi Arabia are approaching .!!! when talking about the Middle East and Latin America and Africa , in many cases , the criminal nature of capitalism and the anti-labor roots of the governments of these countries is practically forgotten , and their every struggle and blackmail from the United States is at the expense of defending the interests of the working and toiling masses .!!! The catastrophe of the workers ‘delusion into democracy is the deception of capital and the suppression of workers’ movements into reactionary democracies see the sections of the bourgeoisie as the terror of the poles of capital power .!! Sees OPEC cartel bargaining to raise oil prices as important cornerstone of war between exploiters and poles !! Or many other harmful and multiplier distortions , the only feature of which is the engineering of the thoughts of the working masses for the benefit of the world bourgeoisie as much as possible . In this way of looking at capitalism, Chomsky also clarifies the task of his narrative of socialism too . Deepening capitalist democracy with the aim of reducing the monopolies of governments and centralized institutions of power , democratic control of unrestrained international financial trusts , and citizens’ greater influence on the decision-making process of governments and centers of power are the real indicators of Chomsky’s socialist society . The fact is that there is no special pattern for socialism in Chomsky’s writings, and perhaps I haven´t seen . But what comes out of his words and deeds should not be anything other than what was mentioned . Picture of the author of “Ideology and Power” from “Free Human Society” !! The future is not unlike the promised paradise of Muslims and not much can be seen in it, and it all has some milk and honey and a few fig and grape trees , but the bitter irony is that even this image is nothing but utopia . As long as there is capitalism, “Shah Sultan Hosseini” will not be able to fulfill the same expectations and the Chomsky´s socialism , the famous anarchist philosopher , will finally , and at best , still be the hell of wage labor with some dress and grooming in the realm of planning and organizational form .
The labor movement and misguided path of anarchism !
(Part 4)
To further explain anarchism, we can refer to the words and writings of other theorists of this approach , but the result of this further search is to the extent that its related to the knowledge of the anarchist movement and not to the knowledge of the anarchist figures , it will be nothing more than what we saw in the works of Bakunin, Proudhon and Chomsky . The fact is that anarchism has played a destructive misguided role in the world labor movement from the beginning until today , and throughout this long history, many workers of different generations have entered the battlefield under this banner . This vast mass of workers , by virtue of their class and social existence, were ready for a radical class struggle against capitalism , but this readiness and capacity has been buried in the mire of anarchist strategies, horizons and solutions to the detriment of proletarian communism and to the benefit of the wage slavery system . The great population of the Communards in the first workers’ revolution in history , as far as being workers , from the point of departure of their anti-exploitation and class war against capital , they created an epic and sang the anthem of human liberation . But the same workers failed when they restrained their struggle at the hands of anarchism, the Proudhons, the Bakunins, and the like . The same is true of the large population of anarchist workers who were members of the First International . As workers , they were ready for war against capitalism , but their recourse to anarchist solutions played an important role in the destruction of the First International . In Russia after the victory of the October Revolution , a significant mass of workers rightly raised their voices in protest against the capitalist orientations of Bolshevism , but these same workers , by hanging their protest to the prescriptions of anarchism , not only did not help to organize a united line against the wage labor of their class , but added another misguidance of path to the Bolsheviks´ other misguided paths . These workers within councils and committees , in the “Kronstadt” uprising or elsewhere , under the pressure of misleading anarchist strategies , instead of insisting on council-like planning to abolish wage labor and organize production , they devoted all their efforts to fighting the dictatorship of the party . The record of anarchists in Spain in the 1940s is not only no better than other places , it is darker and more miserable , anarchism was stronger here than anywhere else in the world . The history of the formation and growth of its circles dates back to ancient times . In the days of the Civil War and the beginning of the mass uprisings of 1931 onwards , the anarcho-syndicalist union known as the CTN alone had about two million workers . The anarchists had great power to mobilize the working and toiling masses in the nationwide movement of the day , but they did not use this ability to line up the workers against capitalism , but to push the workers’ movement in the wrong direction of full-fledged populist and anti-government . CTN and its allies showed no interest in organizing a nationwide anti-wage labor council , because they found the rise of a strong anti-capitalist council movement in the realm of labor planning and social production contrary to their beliefs . In the abyss of the die-hard populism of the anarchist all of this was seen as a manifestation of “communist statehood ” !! and under the name of anti-state building , the working masses were practically driven into the abyss of avoiding any provision to replace the political power of capital and the wage labor system with the nationwide council organization for the abolition of the wage labor of the working masses . The federalist version of the anarchists and formation of trade unions did not have any radical anti-capitalist orientation during the Civil War . The role of anarchism in the present historical context and in relation to the course of the day of the class struggle is exactly the same in the same periods as in what has been said so far . Anarchists are widespread in most of the day labor uprisings . There´s no doubt about this , but everywhere , they are a very serious and effective factor in diverting and defeating the workers’ struggles . In the anti-globalization movement , in the uprising of Wall Street , in the campaign called “Anti-Capitalism” , in the storm of the Greek workers’ struggle , in the massive struggle of the workers in Spain , Italy and elsewhere, were and are most actively present but their role in all these movements and uprisings has lacked any anti-capitalist content and capacity , and for this very reason it has been severely misleading and defeatable . The capitalist system around the world has deprived the vast majority of the earth’s population of the possibility of living and surviving in various ways . In such circumstances , the flames of discontent and war has been everywhere , and that´s because the large masses of workers are entering the realm of struggle all over the world under the fierce pressure of exploitation and the barbaric aggression of capital . The outburst of anger and warth of the outraged workers is only with conscious campaign , with a wide range of anti-capitalist councils that can open its way to the stormy sea of the abolition of wage labor by crossing the mazes and only then will they win . Anarchists, along with other left-wing reformist parties and forces, are blocking the way for the world labor movement , and lead the workers into going astray . They instead of directing workers into a radical praxis against the basis of wage slavery , but they confuse workers with misguidances such as anti-globalization and protests against this or that World Bank policy , International Money Fund , WTO and several other financial centers . They summarize the capitalist system in the existence of these centers and in the meantime they tie the resolving of the miseries of human to bargaining with these institutions . Anarchism is like a decorating illusion of reformism that prevents the return of world workers’ struggle to the rails of the class war against capital and destroying capitalism . Theorists of this approach are , in a sense , among the worst left-wing groups in claiming the emancipation of the proletariat , and in the sense that they are chanting the most beautiful and humane slogans , such as the liberation of the labor movement from the abyss of law and order , authority and the civil and legal scaffolding of capital . By the way they practically distort all these in the depths of their deeply reformist and capitalist strategies in favor of the bourgeoisie , and even they empty all this of the ability and capacity from anti-wage-labor . In this way , anarchists use these beliefs as tools for the perpetuation of capital , rather than as the mechanism of the proletariat’s war against capital . In recent decades, and especially in recent times, various anarchist circles have overemphasized the miraculous power of street movements . They´ve declared merely being on the streets as a sign of the influential involvement of human beings in organizing protest riots , avoiding these revolts from the usual bourgeois authority and partisanship and their refusal to rely on beyond own will and the capacity of movements and the growing and nurturing of the influence of the exploited . Anarchists are captivated by the same inversions in this regards and practise the same inversions , which they do in other realms and in relation to other issues of the labor movement . The mere of the uprisings on the streets , being networked , spontaneity and their non-compliance with the decisions of a political party or similar components, although very is important , but it doesn´t careate any guarantee of fighting exploitation and their attempt to achieve liberation or even the riots having the appropriate capacity to intervene and exercise collective will and avoidance of authority and these kinds of characteristics . The destiny of the widespread street riots known as the “Arab Spring” !! and widespread street protests in Iran in 2010 and many similar uprisings is the best evidence of this claim . All these while were networked and somewhat spontaneous but followed the solutions of the bourgeois opposition very pitifully , and they were led by the same reactionary oppositions and personalities . More importantly , even a radical uprising like Wall Street with all its apparently anti-capitalist controversy and in spite of the widespread mass acceptance and support , again from the very beginning it witnessed its own erosion , decay and defeat . Here too , extensive network organization , being on the street or non-partisan uprising didn´t create any guarantee for the liberation of the masses of working people from the abyss of capitalist strategies and reformism . In order that a movement would have the real intervening power of the exploited and a true context of growing power and capacity for radical change of current situation , it must think and act based on the Marxian radical critique of capitalism and with organizing council movement against capital with horizon for abolition of wage-labor . It must take the way of disruption of reproduction of capital and the relation of producing surplus value by exercising the conscious power of the broad masses of the working class organized in the councils .
I will devote the last part of this article in just a few lines to the current relations between anarchism and Leninism or the various anarchist sects with the spectrum of Leninist parties . All these parties consider themselves anti-anarchist and have written and spoken out against it for a long time . Actually they´re inverting in this issue like other realms too . Leninist parties are homogeneous and sympathetic to all the theoretical misguidances of anarchism and their theoretical disagreement with the anarchists merely demonstrates their stubborn defense of party power and government over the working class or party machine for the capitalist planning of labor , production and the social life of the people . It´s not without reason that reformism of the leninist leftist-pretender is calling anarchism a noisy , anti-order and anti-organizational approach and against any form of governing society . In their view , obedience to the party and to the government beyond the will of the workers and to the order planned by this government are inviolable issues . The issues that anarchism doesn´t seem to accept . Anarchists in this regard are the true inheritors of liberalism . I´m not saying this but the anarchist Chomsky states it : “ I think the real inheritors of classical liberalism are the liberal socialists and anarchists who oppose hierarchical structures and institutions of power more comprehensively .” (Ideology and power)
These are the top and bottom of the whole difference between the two approaches . Disagreements that are entirely pretending and devoid of any anti-capitalist labor content . The relation between Leninism and Anarchism must be sought in the solid foundations of their unity . None of them dissects capitalism with a conscious Marxian method . Both are equally hostile to council organizing and the anti wage labor of the workers´ movement . The socialism of both is a form of capitalist planning of labor and production. Anti-government , anti-authoritarianism and breaking of law by anarchism also eventually wind up in the planning of this same hell and it becomes some empty slogans .
Naser Paydar
April 2014
