‘The libertarian socialists came to be called “anarchists” because that’s what they were called by their enemies’.
June 2024 by Z Network by Tom Wetzel at Anarchist News. 36 comments from thefreeonline on Telegram here: t.me/thefreeonline
Zoe Baker’s book and videos Means and Ends are a comprehensive look at the revolutionary class-struggle anarchist movement as it existed and developed in the period from the International Workingmen’s Association of 1864-78 to the defeat of the anarchist and syndicalist-inspired revolution in Spain in 1939.
Although the book is not about the writings of famous anarchist authors, she often uses quotes from people like Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta to illustrate points. The author concedes that she only knows English and thus could not consult writings that have not yet been translated into English.
The book does not talk about all the various political tendencies that have used the “anarchist” label but mostly focuses on the main class-struggle oriented tendency which she calls “mass anarchism.”
Because the retreat from class is a common feature in the writing of various anarchists since World War 2 — from George Woodcock to Murray Bookchin and contemporary post-modernist anarchists — I have chosen to use “class-struggle anarchism” to refer to the political tendency this book is about.
People in that movement did not use the term mass anarchism which was first coined by Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt in Black Flame. This term makes a certain sense, though, because of the orientation of that movement to mass struggle and building and participating in formally organized, democratic mass organizations such as worker unions, tenant unions, and independent women’s groups.
Origin
Zoe Baker starts out by honing in on the very specific anarchist tendency that her book is about. This political tendency first emerged as an organized political force within the framework of the International Workingmen’s Association (“First International”).
At a congress of the International in 1869, the majority of the delegates voted in favor of ownership of land by the whole society. This viewpoint was called “collectivism.” Among this collectivist majority, a tendency emerged who opposed a strategy oriented to the politics of parliamentary elections and parties and opposed the goal of gaining state power. This tendency often referred to itself by labels such as “federalist” and “revolutionary socialist.” The word libertarian was first used as another name for anarchism by Joseph Dejacque in 1857.
Thus “libertarian socialist” or “libertarian communist” were also labels used by this tendency.(p. 24) Many did not call themselves “anarchists” initially because anarchism was identified with Proudhon at that time. This emerging federalist, libertarian socialist tendency had significant disagreements with Proudhon.
From the 1840s on, Proudhon had advocated a strategy called mutualism. This was a gradualist strategy of social change through the building of worker cooperatives, with the aid of loans from a “people’s bank.” Proudhon thought the cooperatives could grow to eventually take over more social functions.
Proudhon opposed social ownership of the land, advocating private ownership by those who work the land, such as a peasant farmer. The federalist libertarian socialists did not support Proudhon’s mutualism but “advocated revolutionary…unionism and the simultaneous abolition of capitalism and the state through an armed insurrection, which would forcefully expropriate the capitalist class.” (p. 24)
As Baker points out, the opposition to Proudhon is an example of why the emergent class struggle-oriented federalist socialist or anarchist tendency cannot be defined simply by their proposal for abolition of the state as other socialists also advocated this.
Baker uses the term collectivist in two different ways. She initially defines it as proposing social ownership of the land. Later she talks about an internal disagreement among the class-struggle oriented anarchists between “anarchist collectivists” and “anarchist communists.” Here she is using a distinction explained by Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread. In Kropotkin’s terminology, “collectivists” were people such as James Quillaume. Nestor Makhno or Ricardo Mella who advocated remuneration for work effort in a libertarian socialist society (p. 90).
Workers would be given certificates based on hours worked which they could use to obtain consumer goods. This is similar to Marx’s proposal in A Critique of the Gotha Program. Kropotkin, on the other hand, advocated a proposal of free-to-user provision for all needs — in keeping with the principle, “From each according to ability, to each according to need.”
Kropotkin explicitly opposed remuneration for work effort. People advocating Kropotkin’s view were called “communists.” But according to the original definition of “collectivist,” “communists” would also be “collectivists” since they advocated social ownership of the land. In reality, the principle of remuneration for work effort and the principle of free-to-user pubic goods and services are compatible. Indeed, the Spanish CNT “libertarian communist” program of 1936 advocated both.
Continue reading “A History of Class-Struggle Anarchism – Zoe Baker”
The Free 