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IainIain McKay McKay on on France’sFrance’s new new presidentpresident this issue... Also inside Editorial

After a year off, Black Flag has returned! The good news is that we have a new collective, even if it is on the small side. Even better, we are working closely with the editors of Freedom (who we can thank for the new layout!). Now we are sure that is something Albert Meltzer would never have expected to see in Black Flag – which shows how much things have improved in the anarchist movement over the last ten years or so.

So, what is in this issue? Lots of articles about dead people and the past! We have articles on the 1936 French factory occupations and a lengthy review of the new Durruti biography (which makes up for missing the 70th anniversary of the Spanish ). Then there are the obituaries for three important libertari- ans who have recently passed away – Murray Bookchin, Chris Pallis (better known as Maurice Brinton) and stalwart of the Glaswegian anarchist movement since the 1930s, John Taylor Caldwell.

While there is an analysis of the recent WHY LADYBIRDS? Well, because they help rid the world of parasites, and they have a great French Presidential elections, there is a colour scheme. Photograph: Anya Brennan lack of articles on current events. This is to be expected from a magazine which has sadly been annual for the last few years. We are also dependent on people contributing articles, so if you want Black Flag to cover more recent events then please contact us and write some- thing! We aim to increase the regularity of the magazine, hoping to have two issues out next year, then three the fol- lowing one before going back to quar- terly (but we have said this before, and WHO failed). If you want to see this happen, then get involved – we are dependent on help of our comrades. If this is not forthcoming, neither will be Black Flag! WOULD It really is as simple as that.

Finally, some may question whether the UK anarchist scene needs another anar- HAVE chist magazine. We have "", "Organise!" and "A Touch of Class" – is there a need for Black Flag? We think so but we would be more GUESSED than happy to merge with other jour- nals to produce one good quality quar- terly magazine rather than four ade- quate ones. Whether this will happen THAT depends on numerous factors, but the benefits of so doing should sense on numerous levels. Perhaps if we concen- trate on what unites us rather than the ONE? ultimately minor issues in which we dif- fer, then perhaps the British could build on its many strengths and produce a media which people outside the movement will find of interest and so help our movement grow. Contents Ethos Black Flag is for a social system based on mutual aid and voluntary co-operation – against state control and all forms of n government and economic Cover story: Nicolas Sarkozy has the repression. To establish a share in the attitude, but does he have the strength? general prosperity for all – the Page 4 breaking down of racial, religious, national and sex barriers – and to fight for the life of one world. n Analysis: How the French Popular Front The Black Flag has been a worldwide symbol for anarchism of 1936 had the potential to be so much since the 1880s. It is at base a representative of the negation of more. Page 7 all oppressive structures. About n Obituary: Looking over the remarkable Contibutors/excerpts: life of Murray Bookchin, a founding father Richard Alexander of social ecology Page 13 David Berry Murray Bookchin Maurice Brinton Andrew Flood n Review: Andrew Flood lauds a long Iain McKay Alan Woodward overdue recognition of the contribution of Layout/design revolutionary Page 18 Rob Ray (Freedom Press)

Printing n Centre spread: Maurice Brinton explains Clydeside Press, Scotland the pitfalls and parallels of sects and ( 0141-552 5519 , followed by a review of the last Contact book he wrote before his death in 2004 : [email protected] - Black Flag Page 20 BM Hurricane, , WC1N 3XX, United Kingdom, n Review/History: Richard Alexander Bulk Orders from AK Press takes an extensive look at the life and - AK Press (UK) PO Box 12766 times of , as told by Edinburgh EH8 Abel Paz Page 26 ( 0131 555 5165

- AK Press (USA) n PO Box 40862 Analysis: In the first of a two-part series, San Francisco CA Iain McKay delves into the Russian ( 94140-0682 Revolution. Page 35 : [email protected] 4 Analysis: Sarkozy Mandated for Analysis: He’s the darling of the right but can Sarko beat France’s workers?

ONSERVATIVE politician Nicolas sad thing is that this programme is based ly similar in both countries, at least for the Sarkozy has won the French economics which are at deeply flawed and bulk of the population. Presidential election. He managed to which have little or no bearing to reality. This means that while France may grow convince 53% of the population that At best, it is impartial and incomplete, at more slowly, it benefits more than just the C ruling class. Then there are such factors as he represents change and this message has worse it has been debunked for decades and dutifully been repeated in the media over reflects a fantasy world of whatever unreal poverty and social mobility. here. assumptions are required to make the theory Child poverty is around 7% in France, but at Yet he is basically the chosen successor to come to the conclusion the economist seeks. 16% in Britain (double the rate for 1979) and the incumbent party so, surely, it makes far So the only group that needs Sarkozy’s at 20% in the USA. While poverty has risen, more sense to say the French were looking “reform” of the French economy is its very social mobility has fallen in the US and UK for “more of the same” rather than the Royal rich. since the 1980s neo-liberal . victory would have been the mandate for Do the French people really want to become Moreover, comparing France's income or “change.” like the UK and USA? Countries where the GDP per person to the U.S. fails to take into Failing to note that he had been a politician bosses are in the saddle and workers do what account the fact that French people work far for 20 years, he played the right-wing they are told? less than Americans. populist card of portraying himself as an Sure, the French bosses would love such a So while France may lag America ($30,693 outsider and attacking politicians (and trade regime but they do not make up 53% of the to $43,144), it cannot be said that working unions, immigrants and other usual population. class people are automatically worse off. suspects) for stealing the wealth of hard Part of the problem is Less hours at work and longer working French people. that many people holidays may impact on That this was reported seriously shows the accept the image GDP but only an idiot “objectivity” of the media and the fact some of France as would say that this people bought it shows the gullibility of many one inflicted means the economy is on the right. What can you expect, when you with eco- worse. have a worldview based on authority- nomic Economists cannot worship? stagna- say that one person What was significant in the reporting was tion, a is worse off than how a 3% majority was turned into a strong new “sick another if she mandate for his agenda rather than what it man” of has less was, a relatively small majority which showed Europe. income that a sizeable section of the French people The simply due reject it. source of to working It is doubtful that a Royal victory of 3% the fewer hours. would have been reported in quite the same “decline” of So GDP way. But, then, Bush’s 2004 “victory” of 1% France is per capita was dutifully reported as a landslide for con- usually linked may be servatism. to lower GDP higher in the So what to make of this demand for growth over the US, but only “change”? MEDEF, the French bosses past few years because association, was solidly behind Sarkozy. compared to coun- American This is unsurprising, as he promised to tries like Britain and workers work “reform” the tax on large fortunes and give the USA (both of more hours and tax breaks to big business and the rich while which are constantly not because making more cuts in the state-run national touted as models for they are more health system. France to follow). productive. In other words, to help the already- Yet this perspective fails to Like privileged classes retain and extend their take into account internal socio-economic position. income distribution. Both the “Reform” used to be associated with mak- USA and UK are marked by large ing things better. These days it is usually an (and increasing) inequality. This “economically correct” code word for means that GDP growth is not imposing a neo-liberal agenda (ie, “freeing” equally distributed. the labour market, weakening union power In America, for example, most of and state regulation of business, and reduc- GDP growth has been captured by ing taxes). the top 5% of the population while The assumption is that worsening the situ- median wages have been flat ation for the bulk of a population by making for decades. workers cheaper will lead to greater Ignoring the elite competitiveness, higher profits and, there- would mean that fore, more jobs. GDP growth A clear case of making the economy would be (profits) better at the expense of people. The rough- Analysis: Sarkozy 5 class warfare other Europeans, the French have decided to work less and enjoy it more. So it is important to remember that GDP is not synonymous with well-being. A far better indicator of economic welfare is, in fact, productivity. It is understandable that this is not used as a measure as it is as high, or higher, in France as it is in the US (and much higher than in the UK). And it should be remembered that rising productivity in the US has not been reflecting in rising wages over the last three decades. The gains of productivity, like those in growth, have been accumulated by the boss class and not by the hard working American people (whose working week has steadily increased during that period). France also has created more private sector jobs (+10% between 1996 and 2002, according to the OECD) than the UK (+6%) or the US (+5%). Ironically, the UK economy has barely created any net employment in the private sector in the past five years but unemployment has dropped due to increased public spending which has seen a large rise in public sector jobs. What about the notoriously high REBELLION: Sarkozy’s plans look set to provoke a firestorm of controversy, with some unemployment? This is based on measuring commentators warning of a return to the riots of 2006 against the CPE employment contract. techniques more than anything else. The standard measure of unemployment divides As for general unemployment, the role of work and by refuting one of the key the unemployed by the unemployed plus the EU central bank maintaining high justifications for unbridled capitalism and employed. interest rates over fears of inflation is far class war the rich are carrying out – and By this measure, French males age 15-24 more likely to be the culprit than worker winning – in the UK and USA, France (and have an unemployment rate of 20.8%, as militancy, state regulations or the welfare Europe in general) must be demonised. compared to 11.8% in America. Yet this state. The notion that ordinary people are difference is mainly because, in France, there So the whole “France/Europe is in a state of enjoying themselves rather than serving the are many more young males not in the labour decline” narrative is better understood as a economic machine is one that cannot be force (more are in school and fewer work part corporate media's clever ploy to push it into tolerated – as is the notion of working class time while studying). the hands of the self-destructing neo- people fighting for their rights. As those who are not in the labour market liberalism that is slowly taking its toll on In response to the CPE protests in 2006, are not counted in the standard measure, Britain and America rather than a serious American journalist Elaine Sciolino this gives an inflated value for youth analysis of the real situation there. complained that “the government seems to unemployment. Perhaps the French economy comes in for fear its people; the people seem to fear A far better comparison would be to such consistent bashing precisely because it change.” (March 17 2006 New York Times). compare the number of unemployed divided shows that overall good standards of living Such are the contradictions of neo- by the population of those in the same age are possible without the rich getting richer liberalism. While proclaiming the need to group. This results in the USA having a rate and the workers being turned into serfs. reduce state intervention, it requires of 8.3% and France 8.6%. By showing that there is more to life than increased state power to impose its agenda. It needs to make people fear their government and fear for their jobs. Once that has been achieved, then people who accept Factfile: Sarkozy “change” (i.e. the decisions of their bosses, economic, social and political) without Sarkozy, popularly known as ‘Sarko’, has been in power since question. winning the presidential election on May 6. That the French people do not want a British or American style labour market, full of low-wage toilers who serve at the boss’s n His base is in the right-wing political party UMP (Union for a Popular pleasure should not come as a surprise. Movement), which has an absolute majority in the French national Nor should the notion that elected officials Assembly and Senate. in a supposed democracy are meant to reflect n His political platform is based on a law and order ticket, along with the feelings of the sovereign people be considered as unusual or irrational. painting himself as the tough leader who can carry out ‘modernising’ Can Sarkozy force the French people down reform on behalf of business and the right. the road to (private) serfdom? He wants to be n His background is that of an extremely well-connected career politician, France’s Thatcher and “reform” the economy a media manipulator who has been able to keep embarrassing stories off (which is “economically correct” speak for the front pages of the press. Chirac has chosen him as his successor. breaking working class militancy). As such, it would be useful to remember n His previous positions saw him at the treasury and minister of the Thatcher’s actual economic interior, where he infamously called for the clearance of anti-CPE rioters performance rather than the by high-pressure hose. “economically correct” narrative we have inherited from the media and 44 6 Analysis: Sarkozy

economic “experts.” When Thatcher came to office she did so promising to end the mass unemployment What’s going on now experienced under Labour (it had doubled during between1974 and 1979). Since his election in May, Sarkozy he aimed to place Tony Blair into Unemployment then tripled in her first term rising to over 3 million in 1982 (for the has not moved particularly quickly the position of envoy to the first time since the 1930s, representing 1 in to attack the working class, Middle East. He also took an 8 people), in large part due to the application concentrating to start with on extended US holiday. of Monetarist dogma making the recession fulfilling his promises to the Sarkozy and the UMP look set to far worse than it had to be. Faced with unemployment rising to well middle class base. begin their first major assault on over 10%, Thatcher’s regime did which any In July, the UMP majority, public sector pensions in the right-wing government would – it changed seconded by the Nouveau Centre, run-up to Christmas, which has how unemployment was recorded. approved one of Sarkozy's these prompted warnings from the Yet even knocking hundreds of thousands off the official unemployment records did not electoral offers, by unions that street protests and stop the steady rise in people looking for quasi-suppressing inheritance tax. strikes may follow. work. The inheritance tax used to bring The first to be attacked are the It remained above the 1979 Labour eight billion euros into state 'special retirement schemes' of numbers until the Conservatives left office in coffers. public transport workers, Bank of 1997. Needless to say, a very deep recession, double-figure unemployment for most of the The UMP majority also decreased France officials, National Opera decade, defeats for key strikes and unions other taxes, in particular for upper employees, notary clerks and 125 plus continued high unemployment for middle-class people, allegedly in a other roles. nearly two decades had an impact on the effort to boost GDP growth, dur- Sarkozy believes the schemes, . It made people willing to put up with ing the summer holiday months which were won by strong anything in order to remain in work. Hence when union activity is usually communist groups operating in Thatcher’s “economic miracle” – the working lower. those sectors, who no longer class finally knew its place in the social Sarkozy's initial impact on the wield much influence, are a test hierarchy. Sarkozy does have some disadvantages domestic stage has been point, as the unions have proven compared to Thatcher. It is unlikely that overshadowed by his work in able to resist previous attacks, France will discover substantial deposits of Europe, where he has been instru- notably in 1995 when transport oil and so he will not have the boost of North mental in the attempted revival of workers shut down much of the Sea oil which mitigated some of the destruction inflicted by Thatcher onto the the European Constitution, and in country over the course of a three economy. foreign policy negotiations, where week strike, and again in 2001 and Nor does France have a financial centre of 2003 when plans to raise retire- the same international clout of the City of ment ages were introduced. London whose influence ensured it profited There are up to 165,500 active from the flawed policies it helped inflict on the country. workers on the SCNF (national Monetarism is utterly discredited and so he railroad) and 319,000 retirees on lacks the security of economic ideology the special pension plan. The which Milton Friedman provided the future pensions of some 500,000 Thatcher politicians. France is also in the Euro and so lacks significant means of working people could be affected changing central bank policy as Thatcher by the measures. has. The railways are covered by six He cannot, like Thatcher, command the major unions, CFDT, CFTC, CGT, Bank of England to attempt the impossible task of “controlling” the money supply and CGT-FO, Solidarity, Unity, The SUD so France should not be subjected to the and the independent train drivers' massive increases in interest rates she union FGAAC, who make up one inflicted on Britain. of the strongest defensive units in Can Sarkozy really “do a Thatcher” and triple unemployment in under three years? the French economy. A showdown Can be provoke the deepest recession in would represent a major assault French history since the 1930s? FLASHPOINT: Will the railways be where against uni0n power in the Is he willing to oversee the destruction of the big test of Sarkozy’s UMP will come? country. French manufacturing sector? Will he be willing to use the powers of the state to break the mass protests and strikes factory occupations? French values in respect to authority: his policies will, inevitably, provoke? Or the militancy of the pre-World War I rebellion! His neo-liberal agenda can be That depends on the willingness of the revolutionary syndicalist movement? Or the defeated only by direct action, by strikes and French people to stand up for their liberties rebel values associated with the Paris taking to the streets. and rights and so impose, from the streets, Commune of 1871? The protests against the recent CPE laws the reforms really needed for the French Or the demands for “Bread or Lead” and show what is possible. The riots and protests people – reforms that politicians will not or “ or Death!” raised in the 1848 which erupted in many cities within hours of cannot achieve. revolution? the election result shows that this spirit Sarkozy claims to seek to alter the Or the cry “Live working or die by fighting!” remains! psychology of France and bring back the raised alongside the black flag by the Only that creativity, militancy, conservative values of merit, work and artisans of Lyons in 1831? and direct action can ensure that in France authority. Or the respect for authority which saw the the government continues to fear its people He wants to turn France back to pre-May Bastille seized and the monarchy guillotined and not the other way round. 1968 values and change the so-called slacker during the Great French Revolution of 1789? mentality it produced. Would that be the As such, the best way for the French people “conservative” French values of the 1936 to resist Sarkozy is to apply traditional By Iain McKay n History: Popular Front 1936-38 7 A failed revolution? History: The French Popular Front of 1936-38

EVENTY years ago, France went through one of the defining moments of its modern history, and S one whose anniversary is still regularly celebrated – and not just by the left and labour movement. In the popular media, it is perhaps celebrated most for introducing paid holidays for all, with photographs of smiling workers setting off for the coastal resorts – hitherto the reserve of the bourgeoisie – in subsidized trains, or cycling through the countryside, or hiking to one of the new socialist youth hostels. On the left, the Popular Front has become one of the central myths of the republican and revolutionary traditions, and has been held up as a counter to the failure (i.e. violent suppression) of the . It is still today seen on the left as a strong reminder of what can be achieved by unity. Indeed, the particular constellation of parties involved – Socialist, Communist and Radical (the latter, despite its name, representing the centre-left) – has reappeared every time the left has come to power since (most recently, under Jospin, with the addition of the Greens). But was the Popular Front such a great success, or was it a failed revolution?

The Popular Front elections, 1936

Although to do so pre-empts, in a way, our understanding of the meaning of the Popular Front, most accounts focus – perhaps under- standably, given the fact that they led to the first constitutionally elected socialist government in France – on the legislative elections of April-May 1936. In those elec- tions, the Communist Party doubled its share of the vote and increased the number of its deputies (MPs) from 10 to 72. The Socialist Party became the biggest party in the Chamber of Deputies (i.e. the equivalent of the House of Commons) with 146 seats (up from 97). And the so-called Radicals (a very broad and ideologically heterogeneous party of the centre, and up until then the dominant party of the Third Republic) fell from 159 seats to 116. This gave the ‘Rassemblement Populaire’ (‘People’s Rally’) 376 seats against 222 for the right. The evening of the first round of voting saw an explosion of joy in working-class areas across France, with spontaneous demonstra- tions in the streets. There had been, however, no major swing in public opinion from right to left. TALL TALES: Workers in Paris stage a factory strike during the upheavals of 1936 What had changed was ‘republican discipline’: the agreement by all left local candidate was opposed to the Popular Toulon. candidates not to stand against the best Front. Many of these advances by the placed candidate of the left in the second The Communists made some surprising Communists were made at the expense of the round of voting (in order to ensure the defeat inroads into rural areas among smallholders, Socialist Party, and represented the of the candidate of the right). and also made significant gains in major beginning of a long-term turnaround in the Having said that, although the Radical industrial centres, particularly in the ‘red relation between the two big Party nationally was officially part of the belt’ (i.e. the working-class suburbs) around parties of the left, with the PC Popular Front, since signing up to the Paris, in the coal-mining areas of the north; (Communist Party) remaining the coalition in 1935, in some constituencies the and in the south-coast ports of Marseille and biggest party (in the country, let 44 8 History: Popular Front 1936-38

alone of the left) until the late 1970s. recession and political radicalisation on both Radicalisation, antifascism and trade At the famous Tours Congress of the left and right. union unity Socialist Party of 1920, a majority of As Kedward has put it, the election campaign delegates had rejected the stance adopted by of 1936 was launched “as the climax to a long One of the upshots of this in an increasingly the party leadership with regard to both the ideological struggle largely fought out on the unstable atmosphere of economic, social and ‘Union Sacrée’ (government of national unity streets.” political crisis was the attempted storming of and support for the war effort in 1914-18) and The global recession that followed the Wall the Chamber of Deputies on 6 February 1934 the question of support for the October Street crash of 1929 was felt in France from by tens of thousands of supporters of revolution. 1931, and especially from 1933. rightwing ‘leagues’ and nationalist This majority had thus created a new party Between 1931 and 1936, over a million jobs paramilitary groups. In the most violent affiliated to the Moscow International. were cut in France, with textiles and the scenes in Paris since the Commune of 1871, The rump of the Socialist Party, however, metalworking industries being particularly a policeman and sixteen extreme-right had quickly rebuilt the party, overtaking the hard hit. Small-scale agriculture and small demonstrators were killed. Communists as the biggest party of the left businesses also suffered. It was a watershed in the growing polariza- by 1924, whilst at the same time the newly In a climate of economic crisis and tion between left and right in inter-war launched Communist Party (known from its ideological extremism, xenophobia France. As the left-wing intellectual Gilles creation in 1920 until 1934 as the increased. The nationalist right warned of the Martinet wrote after the events: “In the grey Communist Party, French Section of the danger of the arrival of what they called light of winter 1934, the two Frances which ) had rapidly lost ‘Jewish ’ (namely German Jews had never renounced their old passions, support and members and turned itself into fleeing Nazism), and the right of asylum, revolutionary or counter-revolutionary, once an isolated and sectarian Stalinist ‘groupus- something which French republicans have again confronted each other. I don’t think cule’. always been proud of, came under attack. they were unhappy about it.” What the overall 1936 election results A number of high-profile corruption cases Most historians now reckon 6 February did suggested was a rejection of economic linked to Radical Party politicians (the not represent a real threat of a right-wing liberalism and a weakening of the centrist Stavisky affair of 1934 being the most coup. At the time, though, that was certainly how it felt. The effects of the economic depression, street activism and radicalisation meant that both left and right believed they had a chance to achieve their ambitions. The response to 6 February from the left was immediate. A PC counter-demonstration held on 9 February led to four deaths in clashes with police. The CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail or General Labour Confederation, by far the biggest national trade union centre) called for a one-day on the 12th in protest at the actions of the right-wing ‘leagues’, and the CGTU (the ‘Unitary’ CGT, dominated by the Communist Party), PC and PS (Socialist Party) all eventually called for national action on the same day. In highly unionised areas, 12 February was very successful: in Le Havre, for instance, 70-80% of workers walked out and nearly all the factories were shut down. An interesting development in some towns was that the CGT succeeded in bringing out blue-collar and white-collar workers together – indeed, given the role of public sector cuts in successive governments’ response to the depression, the ‘fonctionnaires’ (public sector employees) were seen as playing a central role. The CGT’s strike call had immediately led to the spontaneous creation in some towns NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR: An anti-war demonstration kicks off in Paris in 1936 of unitary CGT/CGTU organizing committees, including in the naval dockyard and Republican consensus. famous) led to a widespread popular foundries of Saint-Nazaire, which had in the The corollary of this was the desire of the conviction that the whole system was corrupt. past been seen as a barometer of majority – after years of economic recession, The nationalist right used such working-class militancy. taylorisation and a series of liberal reforms perceptions to attack the left (the Radicals) And as a CGT official in Périgueux said: which hit the working classes hardest – for which dominated successive governments of “The working class of our town has social reform. the Third Republic (1871-1940). understood that, faced with the threat of This represented, in the words of historian The PC and others on the left insisted on fascism, internal quarrels should stop.” In Rod Kedward, “a historic swing of the the contrary that such cases of corruption Paris, on the afternoon of the 12 February republic away from a purely political were an indictment of bourgeois society. one-day strike, the PS had organised a definition” (La Vie en bleu. France and the There was a widespread belief among the demonstration which the PC had decided to French since 1900). working class that the main cause of their support. hardship was monopolisation, profit and an When the two contingents converged at the Economic recession, racism and the unregulated market, and this produced a Place de la Nation, thousands of grass-roots rise of fascism surge of support for trade union action by the activists began shouting “Unité! Unité!” A early 1930s. joint national congress in March 1936 would The Popular Front as an electoral coalition Many on both left and right believed that eventually formalise the re-unification of the did not appear overnight out of thin air. It was capitalism itself was on the brink of collapse. CGT and CGTU, something for which one manifestation of a broad, deep-rooted On the far left, a common belief was, as the revolutionary syndicalists (such as Pierre popular movement, which in turn was the Anarchist Union put it, that "We are faced Monatte) and a majority of anarchists had product of a number of factors, notably the more and more with the dilemma: fascism or been campaigning for many years. growing taylorisation of industry, economic revolution". The CGT was split by the conflict between, History: Popular Front 1936-38 9

broadly speaking, reformists and Former Communist demands for revolutionaries in 1921. collectivisation and the creation of soviets The growing domination of the CGTU by had been dropped. The official slogan of the the PC led a minority of anarchists to create Popular Front as electoral coalition was the anarcho-syndicalist CGTSR in 1926, thus ‘Pain, Paix, Liberté’ (‘Bread, Peace and weakening the labour movement even Freedom’). Its programme rejected deflation further. and cost-cutting. It promised a reduction of The UA had been calling for a ‘united front’ the working week without loss of pay, against fascism ever since Hitler had come to pensions for retired workers, a national power, and was one of the eight groups unemployment fund and a programme of invited to join the organising committee for public works. the 12th. Control of the Bank of France was to be From October 1936, the official UA strategy taken away from the ‘economic oligarchy’ of was a ‘revolutionary front’ with all non- the largest shareholders. The rightwing anarchist revolutionaries (notably the PS’s paramilitary leagues were to be abolished, Revolutionary Left faction and a small num- women’s right to work would be guaranteed, ber of Trotskyists), although so many trade union rights and secular state anarchists were practically allergic to education defended and equality of access to Marxists of any kind by this stage that the state radio was promised. front was only patchily effective, with many There was also a commitment to the local groups simply failing to implement the League of Nations, disarmament and the policy decision agreed on at national nationalisation of the arms industry. A congress – the Revolutionary Front’s main parliamentary enquiry was promised into the contribution seems to have been to organise situation in the colonies. solidarity with republican Spain, particularly There was no Popular Front commitment to the CNT-FAI. women’s suffrage (there had been universal (For more detail on this, see Dave Berry, manhood suffrage since 1848), but a “Fascism or Revolution!” Anarchism and majority of Socialist and Communist Antifascism in France, 1933-39, on PRIME MINISTER: Leon Blum was elected candidates supported it. This was a raforum.info/article.php3?id_article=238 ) head of the Popular front government progressive programme, but certainly not a antimilitarist ‘Communist Party, French revolutionary one. Stalinist strategy: from ‘class against Section of the Communist International’ class’ to the ‘outstretched hand’ became the ‘French Communist Party’ (PCF), The “Popular Front of the streets” and – in line with Stalin’s pact with the Apart from socio-economic factors and a French foreign minister Laval – declared its The trouble was that the narrowness of the growing understanding of the need for unity ‘understanding’ of the French state’s electoral victory made it clear that virtually against fascism, another factor played a rôle: preoccupation with national defence. half of France was opposed to the reform The PCF also discovered a liking for the international relations, Stalin’s foreign policy programme, so the inevitable resistance had French tricolour, and on demonstrations its and the Comintern’s strategic about-turns. to be pre-empted. stewards now began attacking anarchists for The ‘bolshevization’ of the newly created Before Léon Blum, leader of the PS, was singing the International... national communist parties (ie, the even endorsed as Prime minister of the first The PC slogan had become ‘la main eradication of all factions and internal Popular Front government, a wave of strikes tendue’, the outstretched hand, but this new dissent) had been called for by the 5th spread across France through May, June and policy was aimed not only at Socialists and Congress of the Comintern (June 1924). The July 1936. CGT members, it was also directed at the Comintern’s ‘Third Period’ was instigated in The strikes were novel in two ways: firstly, 1928 and would last until 1935. they involved a very large number of It was based on an aggressive, intransigent occupations of workplaces (there had been a and sectarian stance that came to be known The PCF... on very few occurrences of workplace occupa- as ‘class against class’. Socialists were tion in France in the early 1920s and early condemned as being in league with the demonstrations its 1930s, but it was a tactic known primarily bourgeoisie and thus the working class’s through the Italian example from 1918-20); worst enemy, and were labelled ‘social “ stewards began and secondly, numerous commentators and fascists’. historians have emphasised the cheerful, Anarchist activists’ autobiographies of the attacking anarchists for confident, festive and even carnivalesque period are horrifying in their description of nature of these occupations – partly at least the levels of routine sectarian violence singing the International because the strikers assumed they could provoked largely by this shift in the depend on the support of the new Comintern’s position. government. middle classes, the Radical Party, and at The French PC did not benefit from this When the leftwing philosopher Simone catholics (who had always been not only new strategy either electorally or in terms of Weil revisited the famous Renault works at socially conservative supporters of the right membership: the 1928 elections saw the ” Boulogne-Billancourt (on the edge of Paris) and extreme right, but actively opposed to the party’s number of deputies (i.e. MPs) reduced where she had worked the previous year, she republican democratic tradition). from 26 to 12, and by 1932 membership had described it as the moment “when workers dropped to 25,000. dared to take control of and assert their But Stalin and the Comintern finally The Popular Front electoral humanity over both the employers and the abandoned their sectarianism in June 1934, programme rationalisation of work”. adopting instead – rather belatedly, many Women workers played an important role non-Communist militants thought – the For the first time, the 1936 elections saw the in the strikes, either directly (one of the policy of a united front against fascism and publication of a common programme by the best-known examples being women sales nazism. parties of the left – albeit one couched in fair- assistants in the big modern department The French PC immediately adopted a ly general terms. stores such as the Galeries Lafayette) or policy of left-wing unity, and signed a There was also, as we have seen, an indirectly through their solidarity (bringing ‘Common Front’ with the PS. 1935 also saw agreement not to stand against another food and suchlike to the occupied factories). the signing of a Franco-Soviet pact between Popular Front candidate in the second round Branches of industry with relatively low the two governments. of voting. unionization rates were often in the vanguard This was a turning-point in the The biggest policy compromises were made of the movement. development of ‘people’s fronts’ across by the PS, whose policy of nationalisation The strike wave of May-July 1936 Europe, and saw national CPs fall in line was opposed by the Communists and the was the biggest in French history behind national defence. This is when the Radicals, neither of which wished to (up till then – it would be hitherto intransigently internationalist and antagonise the middle classes. surpassed in May-June 1968). 44 10 History: Popular Front 1936-38

Nearly 2 million workers took part in over The upshot was: thought necessary. 12,000 strikes, three quarters of which also n The right to form or join a union, and the March saw the infamous events at Clichy involved occupations. right to union representation in the (on the northern edge of Paris), when the The strikes were nearly all in the private workplace (the ‘délégué du personnel’); government refused to ban a meeting held by sector, as public sector employees believed n The legal right to strike; the quasi-fascist Parti Social Français, the new government would look after them. n The introduction of collective bargaining; despite the wishes of the local left-wing The first occupations occurred in Le Havre n A blanket 15-17% pay rise for all workers; council: a counter-demonstration by and Toulouse, and were defensive strikes in n The 40 hour week (with no loss of pay); Communists and left-wing Socialists led to a support of workers who had been sacked for street battle with police, who shot dead six n Two weeks’ paid holidays for all. taking the day off work on . activists. This was undoubtedly a major turning Such defensive strikes and occupations The subsequent funeral was the scene of a point, for the collective strength of the rapidly spread, however, and began to involve powerful, mass demonstration of the working class had forced these concessions demands related to pay and working hours. dissatisfaction of many with the Popular out of the employers despite relatively high Metalworkers and mechanics (particularly Front’s leaders. unemployment. in the aviation and automobile industries) in Algerians who had had high hopes of the However, even after the legislation, strikers the Paris region played a particularly Popular Front government, were also to be continued their action, wanting to go beyond important role. bitterly disappointed by its failure to make the concessions their ‘representatives’ had But the action soon spread to include a any move towards Algerian independence. got for them. range of branches, much smaller workplaces The Etoile Nord-Africaine was even This greatly worried the PS and CGT and even white-collar workers such as office dissolved in January 1937 by the same law leaders, and on 11 June, the PCF leader and shop workers – in the Seine-et-Marne which had supposedly been introduced to get Maurice Thorez, arguing that this was not the and Seine-et-Oise departments (just outside rid of the far-right ‘leagues’. Its leader, time for taking power, uttered the (in)famous the Paris region) 10,000 agricultural labour- Messali Hadj, launched a new party, the Parti words: “Il faut savoir terminer une grève” – ers occupied farms. de Peuple Algérien, but he and others were “When our demands have been met, we have All this time, the prime minister Léon Blum arrested in August 1937. to know how to end a strike”. Within days, and the reformist general secretary of the Blum resigned in June 1937. He and other the return to work began to accelerate, Socialists became members of the new, more although around 300 factories were still socially conservative, Radical-led govern- occupied at the end of July. ment, but the impetus for reform was lost The employers’ concessions and the and this was to all intents and purposes the changes in the law were nevertheless seen as end of the Popular Front as a progressive a great success by most French workers, and electoral coalition. the 14 July Bastille Day celebrations made Nevertheless, trade union membership, this clear, with a million on the streets in having grown to around four million, stayed Paris and red flags (then still the symbol of high throughout 1937 and only began to drop the labour movement in general, not of off again in the winter of 1937-38. By this ) hanging from many windows. point, the economic situation was worsening, A more negative note was sounded by the the Radicals had shifted back to the right and libertarian and other socialist revolutionaries the employers were launching an offensive associated with the group Révision in 1938. on gains won by workers in 1936. The unions Looking back on the widespread enthusi- were forced to fight a rearguard action which asm regarding the 1936 agreement with the they eventually lost. employers, they wrote: “Not only did the A second Blum government in the spring of Matignon Agreement, a treaty concluded 1938 lasted only a few weeks when its under the auspices of the Socialist Keynesian reform proposals were blocked by WOMEN STRIKE BACK: Comrades sit government between the big employers and the Senate. down for a meal in an occupied factory in the leadership of the CGT, fail to limit profits The Radical government which came to 1936. or restrict the power of capital. power in April 1938, led by Edouard Daladier, “It has actually forced capital to organise ruled by decree-laws and set about attacking CGT, Léon Jouhaux, tried to restore ‘order’ itself more seriously than in the past and has and persuade workers to go back to work, the 40-hour week; it also relaunched arms reinforced the influence of the most powerful production and promoted a pro-natalist arguing that there was no need for direct capitalists over the capitalist class as a action since there was now a Popular Front policy, reinforcing legal restrictions on abor- whole. The working class is deluding itself as tion and contraception. government. to the value of the reforms it won.” The impact of the occupations was There was a clampdown on immigration enormous, and prompted Marceau Pivert, the and asylum-seekers fleeing fascism and leader of the ‘Revolutionary Left’ faction with- The Popular Front government: nazism abroad, and the Daladier government in the PS (to which Daniel Guérin belonged at problems and disillusion was alone among the so-called democracies the time), to declare: “Everything is not to condemn the nazis’ ‘Kristallnacht’ possible!” The Blum government was certainly in trou- pogrom. An attempted one-day general strike The anarchists likewise emphasised the ble within months of coming to power, as on 30 November 1938 was a miserable failure revolutionary potential of the situation. The financial problems led to a loss of middle and was the last straw in the disillusion of reformist leadership of the CGT, however, felt class support and even greater hostility than the working-class movement. that a major programme of social reforms before from business interests. Inflation led supported by a majority of the electorate was to further strikes (mostly unsuccessful). Was a revolution possible in 1936? already enough and was immediately Along with fear of possible contagion from achievable, whereas ‘revolution’ was a Spain (were civil war broke out in July), these It was argued then and it has been argued mirage. factors also led to unease among Blum’s many times since that 1936 could have given Leon Blum and the PS leadership were con- coalition partners in the Radical Party. birth to a social revolution. cerned with the legal exercise of power in a Blum’s response – and one which would in The conditions certainly seemed to be constitutional framework. The employers essence be repeated under François present: the country was suffering from quickly asked for a meeting with the PM and Mitterrand in 1982-4 – was not to radicalise economic recession; the ruling Radical Party CGT representatives on 7 June, and the or accelerate the reform programme, but to was in disarray as far as economic policy was negotiations only took one afternoon, the criticise union ‘irresponsibility’ and impose concerned; the right was divided and balance of power had shifted so much thanks legislation requiring workers to go to confused; popular confidence in the institu- to the strength of the strike and occupation arbitration before calling a strike. tions of the Third Republic and in the ‘ movement (and, it must be said, the election The following February, Blum announced a political class’ as a whole was low; the social results). ‘pause’ in the reform programme. The right effects of recession, taylorisation and The employers conceded the main correctly saw this as a major ideological government policy (spending cuts and so on) demands and the Blum government also retreat and the reactionary Senate prevented had led to widespread popular dissatisfaction passed a number of laws during June. Blum bringing in the financial reforms he and growing militancy. MARCHING ON: Demonstrators on the Rue du faubourg Saint-Antoine, Paris on July 14, 1936. Workers’ class consciousness was very on the character of the Popular Front. supporters, Guérin wrote: “The revolutionary strong and resistance to fascism had led to a On the one hand there was, what Daniel organisation which was lacking in June 1936 massive groundswell of support for working- Guérin called the ‘Popular Front no.1’ – an was not, in my opinion, an authoritarian class and left unity. electoral alliance between , leadership emanating from a small group or The Spanish revolution just over the Stalinism and bourgeois liberalism. sect, but an organ for the co-ordination of the Pyrenees provided a wonderful example of On the other hand was, the ‘Popular Front workers’ councils, growing directly out of the what could be achieved; the French no.2’ – a powerful, extra-parliamentary occupied workplaces. bourgeoisie were completely taken aback by movement, the initiative for which came from The mistake of the Revolutionary Left was the militancy of strikers in 36/37; the fact the working class – “the true popular front, not so much that it was unable, because of its that so many strikes also involved occupa- the popular front of the streets and not of the lack of preparation, to transform itself into a tions in so many parts of France could have politicians” as the Anarchist Union insisted revolutionary party on the Leninist or provided a solid base for co-ordinated in July 1936. Trotskyist model, but that it was unable […] workers’ control on a large scale, leading to a However powerful this popular movement to help the working class to find for itself its situation of . own form of power structure to confront the In the words of one anarchist activist who fraud that was the Popular Front no. 1.” lived through those events: “Rarely have the The working class is The libertarian communist tendency within circumstances been so completely the UA had pushed for the creation of factory favourable to social revolution.” (UTCL deluding itself as to the committees after the reunification of March [Union of Libertarian Communist Workers], Il 1936. These factory committees had three y a 50 ans: le Front populaire). “ value of the reforms it objectives: to disseminate anarchist ideas; to But the legalism of the PS leadership, the encourage direct action; to work in and foster PC’s subservience to Stalin and Soviet has won. the revolutionary militias some socialists foreign policy, the reformism of the CGT were setting up. leadership, the essential statism of the – Révision, 1938 Factory committees were established in French republican tradition and the various of the bigger companies in the Paris attachment of a majority of the working class region, although estimates of how successful to parliamentary democracy, the relative was, the lack of democratic, grassroots they were vary. strength of the anarchist current and the organisation meant there was little or no But when their representation at the UA existence of other, more influential, revolu- resistance (outside a few small minorities)” to congress of October-November 1937 was tionary tendencies (the Revolutionary Left in the movement’s being controlled by the party discussed, it was rejected for fear that the the PS and minorities in the PC and CGT – and trade union hierarchies. organisation might be “diverted into the the Trotskyists were very few and isolated). Guérin made a similar point in his domain of workplace affairs”, as one UA All these factors gravitated against semi-autobiographical account of the member put it. The ‘policy’ was eventually revolution, despite the country’s Popular Front, which was for him a ‘failed abandoned by the UA. revolutionary tradition. revolution’ (see Rob Hall, Daniel Guérin’s Similarly, with regard to the workplace Another negative factor was the lack of “Popular Front in France: A Lost Revolution” occupations, anarchist and other critics have grassroots committees. Individual workers – Modern Parallels which is online at pointed out negative as well as positive tended to remain loyal to their respective staff.lboro.ac.uk/~eudgb/DG_conference_spe aspects. parties and trade unions. akers.htm ). Firstly, revolutionary socialists, There were joint demonstrations, but the Engaging both with the failures of his own anarchists and anarcho-syndical- Popular Front ‘Local Committees’ did not group, the Revolutionary Left, and the ists, then as now, have emphasised play much of a rôle, and this had an impact criticisms made by Trotsky and his French the significance of the occupations, 44 12 History: Popular Front 1936-38

not just because they were spontaneous, widespread, had mass support and were car- ried out against the wishes of the PS, PCF Factfile: The Popular Front and CGT leadership (who did everything they could to control and limit the strikes), but also because of their great symbolic The Popular front was born out of a long buildup of the left as importance. people turned away from the , blaming it as the They demonstrated once again that the working class has only ever made real gains main cause of their hardships. Massive spontaneous strikes when they have taken them by force, and took place, which had widespread support, particularly against more often than not by going outside the law. the fascist threat, but this cohesion broke down in the face of The act of occupying their workplaces suggested a widespread questioning by work- the conflict between reformists and revolutionaries. ers of the very principle of private ownership of the means of production. n 1936 saw a round of factory n President Leon Blum, with the As Le Combat Syndicaliste (weekly paper of occupations and strikes, but these help of the ‘Radicals’ in the the anarcho-syndicalist CGTSR) put it: are generally regarded as having government, was able to block “Attacking both the right to property and the principle of authority, the workers have taken been defensive measures against military aid to the Spanish during control of the means of production, which the threat of fascism and not the civil war, effectively killing are their means of work; for a moment, they pro-active revolutionary ones. hopes for international interven- have stopped the source of profit and exerted n The Union Anarchiste (UA) was tion against Franco’s fascists. their right of occupation, proving in the process their capacity for organisation and also born from the re-unification n A Fédération anarchiste de self-management. They have proved the value of the hitherto split anarchist langue française (FAF) developed of direct action.” movement under the anti-fascist from a split in the UA, and Having said that, the available evidence banner. denounced the collusion between seems to show that the 1936 occupations in n The anarchists were able to set the French anarchists and the fact tended to be defensive and based on the assumption that they were temporary: in up a number of factory committes Popular Front, as well as criticising most cases, the occupiers’ main concern running independently of the the CNT-FAI's participation with seems to have been to prevent lock-outs, and state, however these committees the Republican government in to protect the plant or shop contents from were dropped for fear that the Spain. damage so that work could be started again organisation would become n As was predicted by the once the strike was over. The workers remained unarmed, and their ‘diverted into workplace affairs’ anarchists, while the election of main purpose was to protect plant and n The Radicals, Socialists and the popular front provided a salve premises from attack by police or fascists, Communists collaborated in the for the working classes and an not least so as to make it possible for produc- creation of the Popular Front initial improvement to their tion to be restarted once strikers’ demands were met. government. The communist PC conditions, it was a temporary There was rarely any talk of dropped demands for collectivisa- measure. In the face of business expropriation or of the organisation of tion and the creation of soviets hostility, the leftist government production by workers. was dropped, while the Socialist quickly brought in legislation to Secondly, there were strike committees PS dropped nationalisation. curtail union power. which stayed in close contact with the strikers. General assemblies were held each day, and these also put proposed agreements with employers to the vote of all strikers. unable effectively to counter the arguments “No. That is not its aim – our nice republi- Often, the assemblies rejected the of the reformists in the PS and CGT can Radicals could never subscribe to such a recommendations of their delegates on the leadership, or to counter the lies and thing.” Popular Front governments in France committee. On the other hand, the strike manipulations of the Stalinists. or Spain would not be able to achieve what committees were in many cases unelected the working class wanted without going and consisted just of well-known union or The anarchists and popular frontism beyond the legal framework of a bourgeois party activists who acted more or less as parliament, and they would not be able to do spokespersons for their union or party. The French anarchists had from the very that without destroying themselves as One contemporary libertarian communist beginning attacked what they saw as the coalition governments. activist would write 50 years later: “There can fundamental deceptiveness of the Popular Anarchists wondered what would happen be no doubt that in June 36, we can see Front policy, the naïvety of believing that then: “Parliamentary resistance? Capitalism expressed in the proclamations, but also anything significant could be achieved by has shown in several countries that it is quite perfectly clear in their actions, the electing a Popular Front government: ‘make capable of overcoming such opposition revolutionary will of the working class. the rich pay’ was a seductive but misleading without lifting a finger. “What the workers wanted was a radical slogan. The Popular Front, if it wishes to hold on to change in the system and in their everyday This was, of course, a matter of very basic power, will have to protect itself by adopting lives.” anarchist principle, as the UA’s manifesto a ‘neutrality’ which will be greatly appreciat- The reasons the movement failed (beyond (adopted at its Paris congress of April 1936) ed by capital. achieving anything other than a few social made clear: parliamentarism was the gravest Otherwise, it will be forced to step down. reforms which it would prove easy for the rul- danger to the working class, being no more There is no other possible solution.” As the ing class to claw back once the strike move- than an anaesthetic. UA had predicted even before Blum et al were ment subsided and the working class put its An electoral alliance with the bourgeoisie elected: “The Popular Front experiment will faith in their political representatives) were was a trick, because it had the working class be the greatest confirmation of our ideas on that the workers’ struggles were contained in believe that their interests were the same as the incapacity of political parties to lead the such a way that their demands never went their rulers’, and a century’s experience proletariat to its complete emancipation.” beyond relatively superficial economic and showed that it was “always the working class They were right, and their analysis has social issues, and because the vast majority that pays the cost of such alliances”. been repeatedly demonstrated to be correct never lost their faith in their traditional It was therefore foolish to believe that a by every subsequent Popular Front-type leaders or their illusions about the liberatory Popular Front government would or could government. potential of a reformist government. achieve what the working class needed: “Will Anarchists and other revolutionaries had it expropriate the industrialists and the proved unequal to the task in that they were financiers? By David Berry n Obituary: Bookchin 13 Remember his best Obituary: Bookchin’s later years should be forgotten. In his prime, he left a great and lasting legacy.

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) slaves in mass production industries rather The last five years of his life saw him than all people who sell their labour to a distance himself from, then vigorously MURRAY Bookchin died at home on the 30th boss. attack, the anarchism he had done so much Such a definition of "worker" always to enrich and develop. of July last year at the age of 85, surrounded seemed to me to be narrow and a handicap to For example, his account of Spanish by his family. From the 1960s onwards, political analysis. As confirmed when his Anarchism in volume four of his "The Third Bookchin was, rightly, considered one of the ideas were used by those who would later Revolution" utterly contradicts his early world's leading anarchist thinkers. His death, turn against him to attack class struggle praise and analysis, coming across as a bitter while not unexpected, is still a sad day for anarchists as "workerists" (indeed, those tirade by someone ignorant of his subject our movement. who attack "workerist" anarchists always and his introduction to the last edition of It is hard to know where to start. Bookchin seem to me to have an understanding of class "Post-Scarcity Anarchism" mars a classic contributed so much to the development of far more in common with "vulgar" Marxists book. Equally, his new found appreciation for anarchism over since the 1960s that to than the people they are attacking). seems ironic given that he summarise his work is difficult, if not That said, Bookchin correctly placed criticised it so before his rejection of impossible. I still remember how thrilled I hierarchy back at the heart of contemporary anarchism. was to read "Post-Scarcity Anarchism" – this This flowed from the polemics produced by was an author who knew what anarchism his " versus Lifestyle was about. Reading "Toward an Ecological Anarchism" and conducted (by both sides) Society" and "The Spanish Anarchists" con- with increasing personal abuse and venom. firmed this. Having recently reread that book, I still find Bookchin placed ecological thought and his critique valid, if flawed in parts. By concerns at the heart of anarchism and vice concentrating on minor mistakes as well as versa. Bookchin's own reformist strategy, his His account of the Spanish Anarchist critics managed to ignore the very valid movement is unsurpassed and his critique of critique of technophobia, primitivism and and Leninism is still essential related nonsense it contained. reading. His argument that only a free and Sadly, rather than dismiss his critics as open society (i.e. ) can being not his kind of anarchist and moving resolve the problems confronting the on, he ended up agreeing with them that environment remains as true today as first anarchism was inherently individualistic! formulated in the 1960s. However, his later (frankly, pathetic) The negative effects of hierarchy, statism attempts to deny that social ecology was a and capitalism on the ecosystem have form of eco-anarchism can, and will, be reached such proportions that even key forgotten in favour of his early works. So sections of the ruling elite cannot ignore while Bookchin may have tried to trash his them – although, of course, their solutions own legacy in the last years of his life, will be technological fixes (what Bookchin anarchists (I hope) will be more generous and termed environmentalism) rather than remember, apply and develop the contribu- genuine solutions which tackle the root tions of a great, if flawed, comrade. causes rather mere symptoms (ecology). A With that in mind, we reproduce here an clear and thoughtful writer on many essay written to mark the 150th anniversary subjects, Bookchin's works have enriched of the publication of the Communist anarchist thought and he will be solely Manifesto in 1997 while he still considered missed. himself an anarchist. Saying that, his legacy is not unproblemat- It shows both his strengths and weakness- ic. His ideas on social ecology, while es. He is far too kind to Marxism, while essential for any modern anarchist, were tied failing to note that many of the features to a strategy (libertarian municipalism) which praised by Marx in the Paris Commune (such was inherently reformist. ONE TO REMEMBER: Bookchin was a US as mandates) had been supported by the The idea of anarchists standing in local libertarian socialist likes of Proudhon and Bakunin long before elections to provide a legal base for creating hand. popular assemblies was always doomed to anarchism after some (particularly syndical- Then there is the identification of working failure, for reasons anarchists had explained ists) focused it more on to (economic) class. class with industrial proletariat and the to Marxists since the 1860s. We are direct I think that few, if any, class struggle strategy of stating in municipal elections as actionists for good reasons! anarchists today have such a narrow focus – means of creating popular assemblies, all of Then there is his critique of the working even if some of our opponents claim we do which are dubious to say the least. However, class as a force of social change. Here, I –and that is thanks, in large part, to his strengths are also clear with insightful think, he most showed that his initial Bookchin's work (even if, at times, he comments made about the limitations on political experience was with Marxism (he appeared to throw the baby out with the bath Marxist ideology and its ambiguous and joined the Communist youth organisation at water!). vague notions on a revolutionary state. age nine, expelled a few years later he became Similarly, few, if any, anarcho-syndicalists We hope you it and remember a comrade a Trotskyist for a short period before or other class struggle anarchists today who, for all his faults, enriched anarchism becoming an anarchist). would be as uncritical of existing technolo- immensely during his time in the movement. Sadly, this early experience seemed to have gies and the division of labour they imply as shaped his notion of what "proletarian" and they appeared to be before Bookchin's work "worker" meant, limiting it to those wage on the subject. By Iain McKay n 14 Critique: The Communist Manifesto Second look at Critique: Bookchin trains his insight on a tome which helped change the world – The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto: Insights and lived social relations, not simply their cultur- John Ball in the English Peasant War of the Problems al offshoots. 14th century. Murray Bookchin Its stylistic magnetism, which made it the Having no direct impact upon the events from New Politics, vol. 6, no. 4 inimitable model for so many later program- that made up the stormy year of 1848, The (new series), Winter 1998 matic statements by revolutionary move- Manifesto nonetheless left a lasting imprint ments, lies precisely in its bold candor about upon subsequent working-class movements, IT is politically restorative to look with a the material factors that guide human behav- providing a definitive standard by which their fresh eye at The Manifesto of the Communist ior. Far more than Nietzsche, Marx (who revolutionary intentions were to be judged. Party (to use its original title), written before seems to have penned most of The Manifesto) And it placed upon every subsequent revo- Marxism was overlaid by reformist, wrote with a hammer about the realities of lutionary movement the obligation to make postmodernist, spiritual, and psychological the capitalist system that were emerging in the oppressed conscious of their status – commentaries. his time. that is to say, to inculcate among the From an examination of this work exploited a deep sense of class con- on its own terms, what emerges is sciousness and to urge them to abolish that it is not a "text" intended to be class society as such. served up for academic deconstruc- Pounded out as it was, the opening tion and convoluted exegesis but line of The Manifesto – unadorned and rather the manifesto of a party that unequivocal – immediately fixed the challenged the existence of capitalist Communist League (for which it was social relations and their underlying written) as an overtly revolutionary class base. movement. The Manifesto directly faced the Thereafter, socialist organisations exploitative social order of its time and and movements that professed to seek intended to move a class – the proletari- justice for the oppressed had to at – to revolutionary action against it. validate their standing with the Bringing theory to the service of emerging working class in its conflict building a movement, as Marx and with the bourgeoisie. Engels did – indeed, they perceptively After the publication of The interwove basic analytical ideas with Manifesto, class struggle was taken programmatic and organisational issues for granted among such movements, – is becoming alien in the present era, even if they sought to achieve which is sharply dichotomising the two. socialism in peaceful and piecemeal To be sure, the existence of ways by making compromises "Marxology" as a university discipline between workers and capitalists. today, with its own professoriat and Moreover, Marx's opening line journals, as distinguished from a living announced that The Manifesto practice, is not an entirely unprecedented would not obfuscate the real social phenomenon. relations that make up capitalism. Kautsky, among others, already began Capitalism, The Manifesto went on to make this dichotomy as editor of Die to emphasise, is an unrelentingly Neue Zeit in the 1890s. But Die Neue Zeit, exploitative economy that is driven at least, was the theoretical organ of a by its competitive relations to mass movement that mobilised hundreds colonise the entire world and to of thousands of people on the German bring social life as such face to face political scene. with the question of its very ability It was not until recent decades that to survive in the absence of a strictly scholarly Marxian journals communist society. appeared that exhibited few or no political Today, when reformism permeates intentions and hence provided no basis for The famous opening line – most of the political thinking that goes under a practice engaged in transforming society. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the name of leftism, we would do well to The divorce between theory and practice – the history of class struggles" – is arresting- recall that Marx and Engels warned, a and the failure of avowed leftists to build a ly declarative, allowing for no equivocation.(1) century and a half ago, that "the bourgeoisie revolutionary public sphere in the past few Published in a limited German edition of is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in decades – has led to the debilitation of 800 on the eve of the 1848 February society, and to impose its conditions of theory itself, as witness the current Revolution in France, The Manifesto existence upon society as an over-riding law," acceptance of postmodernist nihilism, synthesised generations of reflection on the indeed, that "its existence is no longer Situationist aestheticism, and quite recently, root causes of social injustice and conflict. compatible with society" (pp. 495, 497). even Eastern spiritualism among a number of As Marx himself freely acknowledged, the Parts I ("Bourgeois and Proletarians") and self-professed Marxists. importance that it attaches to class struggles II ("Proletarians and Communists") of The By contrast, the most refreshing feature of was not new to revolutionary thought. It can Manifesto lay out the main argument of The Manifesto as a theoretical document is be traced back to the Levellers of the English volume one of Capital, in vivid, clear prose that it candidly and unabashedly addresses Revolution and even to Lollards such as that is as excitingly programmatic as it is Critique: The Communist Manifesto 15 the classic text

brilliantly theoretical. conditions into the future – and the theoreti- unequalled by any contemporary socialistic The pithy formulations are impossible to cal projections of Marx and Engels here document. It showed that communism was summarise without doing them injustice, became glaring realities many generations not merely an ethical desideratum for social while the brilliance with which Marx and later, although remaining unfulfilled even justice but a compelling historical necessity, Engels demonstrated that capitalism creates into the new millennium. flowing out of the very development of the conditions for its inevitable destruction Paramount is the salient reality that capitalism itself. is impossible to capture. The culminating capitalism is the uncontrollable work of This leap was reined in by its ten-point passage of part I contains ideas that are historical "sorcery" – a system of production minimum program, largely the work of provocative and prescient even for the for its own sake – that, while it exists, must Engels. With its moderate demands, it seems coming century: eat away at the natural world and drastically to have been designed for the German "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without remake the planet, probably to the detriment workers' movement, which was still allied constantly revolutionising the instruments of all life-forms, including human beings. with the middle classes against the of production, and thereby the relations of Without a revolutionary change, its drive as aristocracy. Hence even the most socialistic production, and with them the whole a transformative system – a society that runs of the ten demands, the seventh, prudently relations of society... on its own, beyond even the control of the called for the "extension of factories and “Constant revolutionising of production, bourgeoisie itself – may be modified but instruments of production owned by the uninterrupted disturbance of all social cannot be arrested. state" rather than the collectivisation of the conditions, everlasting uncertainty and No "discourse" on the theoretical or economy (p. 505). agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch programmatic issues of The Manifesto can be In a long-range perspective, part II of The from all earlier ones. meaningful unless it addresses the need for Manifesto projected the concentration of all “All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their the formation a "revolutionary movement productive facilities, including the land, in train of ancient and venerable prejudices and against the existing social and political order the "hands of a vast association of the whole opinions, are swept away, all new-formed of things" (p. 519). nation" (p. 505). ones become antiquated before they can "The theory of the Communists," as The Actually, this last phrase, "a vast ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that Manifesto declares, "may be summed up in association of the whole nation," was is holy is profaned, and man is at last the single sentence: Abolition of private specific to the English translation; the compelled to face with sober senses his real property" (p. 498) – or equivalently, abolition original German spoke of "associated individ- conditions of life, and his relations with his of capitalism, without any reservations. For a uals," a somewhat Proudhonist formulation kind. communist movement to fall short of this that would have made the document more “The need of a constantly expanding goal, as Marx and Engels understood, would acceptable in Germany at the time. market for its products chases the After classes disappear and property has bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the become socialised, The Manifesto says, the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle Political power, properly "public power will lose its political everywhere, establish connexions character," that is, its statist form: everywhere... so called, is merely the "Political power [the state], properly so “Modern bourgeois society with its called, is merely the organised power of one relations of production, of exchange and of “ organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the property, a society that has conjured up such proletariat in its contest with the bourgeoisie gigantic means of production and of class for oppressing is compelled, by force of circumstances, to exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no organise itself as a class, if, by means of a longer able to control the powers of the another. revolution it makes itself the ruling class, nether world whom he has called up by his and, as such, sweeps away the old conditions spells". (pp. 487, 489) of production by force, then it will, along with These lines were written a century and a be, not to "approximate" it or to "realistical- these conditions, have swept away the half ago, when capitalism was hardly the ly" modify it, but to abandon it altogether. conditions for the existence of class prevalent social order on the European As the authors of The Manifesto were” to antagonisms and of class generally and will continent, although it had made great write in their address to the Communist thereby have abolished its own supremacy as inroads into Britain and its ultimate League after the events of 1848-49, reforms a class. ascendance in France and Germany was could validly be demanded, but only as a “In place of the old bourgeois society with foreseeable. means to ratchet up greater demands that its class and class antagonisms, we shall Industrial capitalism on the European would be impossible for the existing social have an association, in which the free continent was still embedded in a mixed order to satisfy and that thus would lead to development of each is the condition for the economy – partly bourgeois, partly feudal, an armed confrontation with the bourgeoisie free development of all." (pp. 505-6) and largely peasant. Nearly all cities were still over the very structure of society. The Communists who try to achieve these compact entities, crowded with winding Nor were the readers of The Manifesto in aims, says the document, have no interests medieval streets and surrounded by walls, those years – and not even for a generation "apart from those of the proletariat as a and everyday commodities were still later – members of the industrial proletariat, whole" (p. 496). fashioned by the hands of skilled artisans. to whom the document was addressed. By far They constitute the most resolute party in The winter of 1847-48 was still the the great majority of workers who could the struggle for promoting the welfare of the inception of the bourgeois epoch, not its high understand its message were artisans who proletariat, but always viewing the contours point, let alone its end, and the words aspired to the right to "associate" (in craftlike of the struggle as a whole, they "everywhere globalisation and multinationalism were mutualistic brotherhoods or industrial trade support every revolutionary movement unheard of, even as The Manifesto described unions) and, among the most advanced against the existing social and political order similar phenomena. The predictions in this workers, to the right to "organise work" of things." Indeed, they always bring to the passage might have been dismissed as cooperatively. front "as the leading question in each fanciful visions, had they not been placed in This artisanal or associative socialism, as [struggle], the property question, no matter the context of The Manifesto, which gave historians have called it, was more what its degree of development at the time" them an historical as well as an educative than communistic, rewarding the (p. 519). meaning that previous accounts of capitalism members of associations according to their Given its analysis of capitalism as (a word that was still new) had lacked. work rather than according to their needs. a doomed social order, within which These lines demonstrate the power of By contrast, The Manifesto of the reforms must always be placed in the theory to project itself beyond given Communist Party made a dramatic leap, service of revolution; its resolute 44 16 Critique: The Communist Manifesto

commitment to (generally violent) revolution; Indeed, with political power reinforced by confederation of communes. It essentially its view of communism as an associative economic power in the form of a nationalised challenged the existence of the French rather than a state system "in which the free economy, a "workers' republic" might well nation-state, calling upon the thousands of development of each is the condition for the prove to be a despotism (to use one of communes that dotted France to unite in a free development of all," it is only fair to ask Bakunin's more favorite terms) of Proudhonist contractual network of what Marx and Engels meant by "political unparalleled oppression. autonomous communes rather than subject power" in 1847-48. Marx and Engels had no effective response themselves to a centralised state. The answer – idiosyncratic in the light of to make to this criticism, as we can tell from Marx embraced this municipalist what the two men were to write in later years their correspondence with their German Commune, and in substance its call for a – is surprisingly libertarian. supporters. Nothing in their writings shows confederation of communes (without using In The Manifesto, the proletarian "state" that they gave any serious regard to the the compromising word confederation, which that will replace the bourgeois "political "assemblyist" tradition established by the his anarchist opponents employed), as a power" and initially make the most "despotic Parisian sections during the Great French political structure in which "the old cen- inroads on the right of property" will consist Revolution, in which the poorest and most tralised government in the provinces" would, of the proletariat raised to "the position of dispossessed in the French capital actually following Paris as a model, "have to give way ruling class." More specifically: exercised collective power in their to the self-government of the producers" – "The proletariat will use its political neighborhood assemblies during the stormy presumably a proletarian dictatorship. supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital period between the August journée of 1792, Each delegate from the various communes from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all which eliminated the monarchy, and the would be bound "by the mandat impératif instruments of production in the hands of June journée of 1793, which nearly replaced (formal instructions) of his constituents," a the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the Convention with a communalist system strictly anarchist concept that reduced a del- the ruling class, and to increase the total of of administration under sectional control. egate from a parliamentary representative or productive forces as rapidly as possible." This tradition, which lingered in France deputy to a mere agent of the people, in (emphasis added, p. 504) through most of the 19th century, found no whose voice he was expected to speak and This can hardly be called a state in either echo in the Marxist literature. vote.(4) the usual Marxian or the social anarchist But the Paris Commune of 1871 came as a Marx s assertion that the central govern- ment would retain "few but important func- tions" was brave but hardly credible – and even James Guillaume, one of Bakunin's closest associates, regarded Marx's favorable appraisal of the Commune's libertarian fea- tures as the basis for a reconciliation between Marxists and anarchists in the First International. Engels, in an 1875 letter to August Bebel criticising the Gotha Program (which had just been adopted by the German Social Democrats), even urged that instead of "People's State," the program use a "good old German word," Gemeinwesen, "which can very well do service for the French 'Commune,'" although he said little about its substance.(5) In time, and not without vacillation, Marx went back on his favorable account of the Commune.(6) There is little doubt that he returned to the support for republican insti- tutions that had marked his political views in PARIS COMMUNE: Marx initially praised the Communards the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848. In the last years of his life, without saying much sense of the word. In fact, the implications of breath of fresh air to Marx and Engels, who, a on the subject of the Commune, he clearly this extraordinary formulation have vexed generation after The Manifesto was still favored incorporating into the republic even the ablest of socialist theorists, published, embraced the Commune as the many of the features – the pay scale for anarchist as well as Marxist – and they institutional structure that the proletariat deputies, the right to recall, the need to arm dogged Marx and Engels themselves as a would produce between a capitalist and a the working class, and the mandat impératif problem up to the last years of their lives. communist society, or as Marx put it in his – that he had praised in The Civil War in How could an entire class, the proletariat Critique of the Gotha Program, "the France. But the extent to which he thought a organised as a "movement" that would revolutionary dictatorship of the worker's state should be centralised and how eventually speak for society as a whole, insti- proletariat."(2) much authority he thought it should enjoy tutionalise itself into a "political" (or state) Marx praised the Commune for introducing remained unanswered questions upon his power? By what concrete institutional forms the right to recall deputies to the Communal death. would this class, whose revolution in con- Council (the equivalent of the city council of Republican institutions, however much trast to all previous ones would represent Paris), the adoption of a skilled worker's they are intended to express the interests of "the interest of the immense majority" (p. wage as reimbursement for participating in the workers, necessarily place policy-making 495), exercise its economic and political the Council, the arming of the people, and in the hands of deputies and categorically do sovereignty? very significantly, a "working, not a not constitute a "proletariat organised as a Until the Paris Commune of 1871, Marx and parliamentary, body, executive and legislative ruling class." Engels probably intended for the "political at the same time."(3) If public policy, as distinguished from power" that the proletariat would establish to The economic achievements of the administrative activities, is not made by the be nothing more than a republic, that is, a Commune were very limited; not only did it people mobilised into assemblies and con- representative form of government, albeit one fail to socialise the economy, it brought federally coordinated by agents on a local, rooted in political rights such as recall. much-needed reforms to the working class regional, and national basis, then a democra- Anarchist critics of Marx pointed out with only because the more radical cy in the precise sense of the term does not considerable effect that any system of repre- Internationalists, who formed a minority of exist. The powers that people enjoy under sentation would become a statist interest in the Communal Council, had to overcome the such circumstances can be usurped without its own right, one that at best would work obstruction of the neo-Jacobins, who difficulty. against the interests of the working classes supported bourgeois legalities. Some anarchists will always find fault with (including the peasantry), and that at worst In its political institutions the Commune any form of institutional social organisation, would be a dictatorial power as vicious as the was much more of a municipalist entity, with but if the people are to acquire real power worst bourgeois state machines. strong affinities to anarchist notions of a over their lives and society, they must estab- Critique: The Communist Manifesto 17

lish--and in the past they have, for brief their party apparatus. 1937, forcibly demolishing the powerful periods of time established--well-ordered The question of the institutions of political anarchist enclaves in Catalonia and Aragon. institutions in which they themselves and social management by a class as a whole What seems necessary are the institutions directly formulate the policies of their – and eventually by citizens in a classless of a democratic politics – to use the word communities and, in the case of their society – has no easy resolution. Plainly it is politics in its Hellenic sense, not as a regions, elect confederal functionaries, not answered adequately by Proudhon's euphemism for modern-day Republican revocable and strictly controllable, who will system of federalism, which is too incoherent statecraft. I refer to a politics that would execute them. Only in this sense can a class, and vague and retains too many bourgeois create local assemblies of the people and especially one committed to the abolition of features, such as contract and individual confederate them in purely administrative classes, be mobilised as a class to manage proprietorship, to provide a truly revolution- councils, in order to constitute a society. ary solution. The solutions that later counterpower to the nation-state. Apart from their writings in erstwhile anarchists, more collectivist than the How such a counterpower could be support of the Paris Commune, neither Marx Proudhonists, offered are pregnant with established and could function falls outside nor Engels ever resolved the problem of the possibilities, but they too suffer from a lack the province of this article; far too many political institutions for proletarian rule that of definition and articulation. important details, both historical and they set for themselves in The Manifesto: the For their part, anarchosyndicalists have logistical, would be lost in a brief summary of problem of how a class, still less the mass of offered workers' control of industry as the this "assemblyist" position.(8) the people in bourgeois society, will take over most viable revolutionary alternative to the That the issue of the institutions of class the reins of power as a class or a people. state, adducing the takeover of factories and rule was even raised in The Manifesto of the In 1905 the Russian workers came up with agricultural land as evidence of its feasibility. Communist Party is one aspect of the their own solution to the question of a An adequate account of its possibilities and document that makes it as living in 1998 as political institution for class power: the limitations would require another article.(7) it was in 1848. Petrograd Soviet. But as social elements for a liberatory That Marx and Engels, with their theoreti- This citywide soviet, which emerged in the society, workers' control has basic problems cal depth, foresaw the trajectory of capitalist Russian capital in the 1905 Revolution, was an approximation of the assemblies that had appeared in the Great French Revolution. Had it remained merely a municipal council, it would have differed little from the Paris Commune, although it was much more work- ing class in character. But the Petrograd Soviet also sank deep roots in the city's factories and was guided, through strike committees and shop commit- tees, directly by the workers themselves. More than Lenin, it was Leon Trotsky, one of its last and certainly its most prominent chairmen, who saw in the soviet not only the institution that could mobilise the proletari- at as a class but provide the transitional political and economic bridge from a capitalist to a socialist society. Lenin's view of the soviet was more instrumental: he regarded it merely as a means for educating the working class and enlisting it in the service of the Bolshevik party. Not until 1917 did Lenin decisively change his view about the soviets and come to regard RUSSIAN SOLUTION: A meeting of the 1905 Petrograd Soviet them as institutions of working-class power. Even so, he wavered during the July events, – not only their parochialism and the highly development, in terms that are even more when the Bolshevik leaders were imprisoned visible decline in numbers of the manufactur- relevant today than in their own day, would as a result of a premature spontaneous insur- ing working class but most especially their be enough to make the work a tour de force rection, but by the autumn of 1917 he had tendency to turn into competitive collectively in the realm of political thought. Both its returned to the goal of a soviet government. owned capitalistic enterprises. great insights and its vexing problems live on For a time he suggested that a soviet Mere economic control of plants and with us to this day. The tragedy of Marxism is government might include all the soviet par- factories is only one side of the coin of a that it was blind to the insights of social ties – Mensheviks and Socialist revolutionary transformation, a lesson the anarchism and that later revolutionaries Revolutionaries of all kinds as well as Spanish anarchosyndicalists learned only failed to incorporate the insights of both and Bolsheviks – but by the end of 1918, the too dramatically in 1936-37, when, despite go beyond them. Bolsheviks ruled the newly established the greatest collectivisation experiment in soviet state entirely alone and eventually history, they failed to eliminate the bourgeois turned the soviets into docile instruments of state – only to find that it returned in May By Murray Bookchin n

NOTES: be avoided. Capitalism is still very much in flux, and February 22, 1881, in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, The Manifesto's warnings about " in produc- vol. 46, pp. 65-66. tion" can by no means be ruled out as a source of THE Manifesto's case for the bourgeoisie's ultimate (7) My full assessment appears in "The Ghost of massive social unrest inability to take custody of social life rested on its Anarcho-Syndicalism," Anarchist Studies, vol. 1 (1993), "pauperisation" of the proletariat -- the famous pp. 3-24. (1) and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the (8) For a revolutionary politics by which people can "immiseration" thesis on which volume 1 of Capital Communist Party, in Collected Works, vol. 6 (Moscow: was to conclude. manage their affairs through direct-democratic popular Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 482. All citations from The assemblies in confederations -- or what I have called lib- With the later emergence of welfare states and Manifesto herein are drawn from this translation, giv- ertarian municipalism--the reader may care to consult their ability to manage crises, capitalism seemed ing page numbers. my book From Urbanization to Cities (1987; London and able to prevent itself from sinking into a deep-seat- (2) Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme in Marx ed economic crisis, causing this notion of "immisera- and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 95; emphasis in New York: Cassell, 1996) as well as Janet Biehl's The tion" to seem questionable. But the volatility of the original. Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism modern, "neo-liberal" capitalism and the erosion of (3) Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, in Marx and (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1997). its methods for crisis management have brought Engels, Collected Works, vol. 22, 331. Recent theories of "strong democracy" and the like into question the ability of capitalism to be a self- (4) Ibid., p. 332. presuppose the existence of the state and tend to defer correcting system. (5) Engels, "Letter to August Bebel, March 18-28, 1875," to the notion that present-day society is too "complex" It is far from clear that, in the years ahead, eco- in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 71. to permit a , thereby offering no seri- nomic collapse (as well as ecological disasters) will (6) See Marx's letter to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, ous challenge to the existing social order. 18 Review: Lucy Parsons Rescuing Lucy Parsons for Review: Collection shows how much organiser and writer Lucy Parsons contributed, not just up until the Haymarket riots, but for 50 years afterwards

Lucy Parsons: Freedom, Equality and Solidarity: 1886 the state used the excuse of a police riot Communist? Writings and Speeches, 1878-1937. during which seven policemen died (mostly Edited by Gale Ahrens after being shot in the crossfire from other Towards the end of her life when the US anar- Pub. Charles H. Kerr police guns) to crush this movement. chist movement had largely collapsed she ISBN: 9780882863009 A rigged trial was used to smash the was active in the Communist Party Paperback 184 pp anarchists’ influence and jail or execute eight dominated 'International Labour Defense'. Price £15.80 incld. postage from US (AK press) of the most prominent anarchists. Unfortunately this allowed some to claim These events which led to Mayday becom- she had joined the Communist Party – a GALE Ahrens has done the anarchist ing an international day of working class claim that is too often repeated by many movement a real service in putting together solidarity are covered in great anarchists today. this collection, which should rescue Lucy In fact there is no evidence for this. The Parsons from the dark corner she CP did publish an obituary when she died has existed in. it but did not claim she was ever a In it she emerges from the shadow member – surely a major oversight if she of her martyred husband as a central had been. if neglected figure in the Her own attitude to working with the development of anarchism in the ILD is probably best expressed in her USA. 1930 May Day speech, which was Lucy has unfortunately been delivered at the age of 77. remembered mostly as the widow of In it she appeals for support for the the Haymarket martyr Albert "hundreds and hundreds" of CP Parsons, executed in Chicago in members in prison cells but she also 1887. declares "I am an anarchist: I have no But this book reveals her activism apology to make to a single man to have started nearly a decade earlier women or child, because I am an and to have ended nearly fifty years anarchist, because anarchism carries later. the very germ of liberty in its womb". For much of this period she was at At the age of 81 she replies to an the core of the revolutionary anarchist anarchist who had written to her movement in the USA and many of her about the state of the US movement at writings retain a real relevancy today. that time. Lucy and Albert arrived in Chicago in She says "Anarchism has not the 1870's and together threw produced any organised ability in the themselves into the revolutionary present generation, only a few loose socialist movement that was growing struggling groups scattered over this there. vast country, that come together in The first letter in this collection was conferences occasionally, talk to one sent by Lucy to 'The socialists' each other, then go home... Do you almost eight years before Haymarket. call this a movement?” It uses the example of a glass workers "I went to work for the lockout to argue against the idea that International Labour Defense (ILD) there can be any partnership between because I wanted to do a little bosses and workers. something to help defend the This was a theme she was to return to victims of capitalism who got into again and again in her writings over the trouble, and not always be talking, decades to come. talking, talking". Organiser Lucy on organisation

By 1879 Lucy was one of the main One of the striking things about reading organisers of the Working Women's Union detail elsewhere – relevant Lucy's writing is how relevant many of her and in 1883 Lucy and Albert took part in the to this review is that Albert, Lucy's husband comments are to the US anarchist movement founding of the Chicago section of the was one of those executed. today. anarchist International Working Peoples Quite naturally these events threw a As a frequent contributor to the anarchist Association. shadow across the rest of her life but press and the editor of the anarchist and pro She was a frequent contributor to the contrary to what is often implied they did not IWW paper 'The Liberator' she understood anarchist paper 'The Alarm' and a co-leader form the sole focus of her future activity. how important a serious commitment to of important working class demonstrations On a speaking tour of Britain in 1888 it was organisation and large-scale publication was. in 1884 and 1885. observed that "she came as a propagandist to "There is no way of building up a move- The anarchists of Chicago were no fringe whom tragedy had given a stronger voice'. ment, strengthening it, and keeping it intact movement but rather the main leadership of Later in 1909 she was also to tour Canada – except by a press, at least weeklies if dailies the Chicago unions and in particular the this time as an IWW agitator. are impossible... struggle for the eight-hour day. For the next 50 years she would be active in "The Liberator is the only English-language Following the general strike of May 1st many anarchist and campaign groups as well. anarchist propaganda paper in America; for Review: Lucy Parsons 19 the anarchist movements this reason, comrades and sympathizers in all parts of the country should feel duty bound to support this paper, write for it, Factfile: Lucy Parsons (1853-1942) contribute to its support financially, and make its success their personal concern". Writing in 1907 she observed, "The Anarchistic cause (there has been no “Strike not for a few cents movement in recent years) has lacked a plan of procedure or organisation." more an hour, because the The existing groups "were composed, for price of living will be raised the most part, of young, inexperienced people who had about as many conceptions faster still, but strike for all of the real aims of Anarchism as there were you earn, be content with members of the group... I, personally, have nothing less.” always held to the idea of organisation, together with an assumption of responsibili- ty by the members, such as paying monthly n Born in Texas to mixed-race dues and collecting funds for propaganda parents, Lucy Parsons fell in love purposes. with at the age of For holding these views I have been called 18, and was forced to flee to the an 'old school' anarchist, etc". This is an example of her serious approach north by the racists reaction to towards organisation. She was involved in their marriage. the Syndicalist League which argued for n She helped found the involvement in the mass unions as well as International Working People’s building the IWW. This along with her willingness to Association in 1883, and was a generally argue for involvement in mass writer for famed anarchist working class organisations suggests she is newspaper The Alarm. one of the few 20th century US anarchists n Her husband was one of the making arguments similar to the organiza- eight Haymarket Martyrs in 1886, tional and interventionist currents of and was hanged by the state of AGITATOR: Lucy Parsons was one of the anarchist-communism. most influential figures of US anarchism However there is no hint in this collection Illinois. that she was even aware of the similar n In 1905 she helped found the communist-led organisation, which debates around 'the platform' happening Industrial Workers of the World. led to accusations that she had within the European anarchist movement in the mid 1920's. n She organized the Chicago joined them. This was never Hunger Demonstrations in January proven and she remained a self- Sex, race and class 1915. declared anarchist in 1930. n She was described by the n She continued agitating until Apart from being known as the widow of Chicago Police Department as shortly before her death in a Albert Parsons Lucy has also received some "more dangerous than a thousand housefire at the age of 89. coverage because she was a women of colour in a movement whose leadership was nearly rioters" in the 1920s. n She was still seen as such a always white and male. n In 1925 she began working with threat by the state that, after her This collection carries a number of her the National Committee of the death, police seized her personal articles on women and racism and from these International Labor Defense, a library and papers. it is easy to see why Lucy has not received a lot more publicity from modern US anarchists. In summary Lucy may have argued for upon the Negro because he is black? increasingly awkward historical figure armed self-defense as the right response to “Not at all. It is because he is poor. It is precisely because she was a woman of racist lynchings some 80 years before because he is dependent. Because he is colour. Malcom X but her approach to the question poorer as a class than his white wage-slave Perhaps her arguments are overly of racism would quickly lead today to her brother of the North". reductionist but at a stage when some who being labeled today as a 'class reductionist' . Her attitude on women's struggles was call themselves anarchists seemed to have In 1886 in response to lynchings in the similar. altogether lost sight of the importance of south she asked While speaking at the founding convention class struggle they are a useful encourage- "Are there any so of the IWW in 1905 she said "I have taken the ment to look again. stupid to believe floor because no other women has respond- This collection goes some considerable these out- ed" but continued: way to putting Lucy Parsons back at the rages have "Wherever wages are to reduced the centre of the development of the anarchist been, are capitalist class use women to reduce them, movement in the USA. being and if there is anything that you men should It is not necessary to agree with everything and will do in the future it is to organise the she wrote to see that she adds a very valuable be women". perspective to the debates that have come to heaped In this context it is easy to understand the dominate that movement today. obscurity Lucy Parsons was allowed to fall n Written for Anarkismo.net RADICAL: into by the US anarchist movement. n You'll find more on Lucy Parsons online at Lucy At it became increasingly hostile to lucyparsonsproject.org Parsons organisation and organisational discipline, helped found as identity politics was pushed to the fore the IWW union over class politics, Lucy Parsons cut an By Andrew Flood n START TO FINISH: Left to right, poses as a prophet surrounded by smiling children, his followers building Jonestown, the colony as it was in 1978-9, and the fallout from the massacre. Photographs: Promotional literature/The Jonestown report/unknown

Analysis: Socialists have often been accused of cultish behaviour. Maurice Brinton asks: What is it that sects pr

JONESTOWN was colonised by the followers of They can provide, for the emotionally or We all like to act in a manner that is rational Jim Jones, a charismatic leader who had materially deprived, the lonely, the rejected (or and that fulfils both one's own needs and founded the Peoples Temple religion in – less often – the culturally alienated or those of others. California in 1955. The religion’s original intellectually confused) the security of human The tragedy is that political and religious principals were staunchly socialist, and the contact, the satisfaction of an activity that sects may convert these positive human church built up a formidable reputation for seems socially useful, and the self-generating attributes into their opposites: manipulation helping the less fortunate in its early incarna- warmth of knowing all the answers, i.e. of a and authoritarian dogmatism on the part of the tion. closed system of beliefs. leaders, submission and the abdication of The sect built Jonestown in Northwest These beliefs diminish, in those who hold critical faculties on the part of the led. Guayana in the mid-1970s, and over 1,000 of them, the awareness of 'failure' or of rejection Jones’ followers moved there for the promise – or the feeling of being useless. Sects in history of a better life. They are potent analgesics. And they offer In the notorious 1978 incident which was to Historically, cults and sects have usually bring worldwide attention, the entire popula- flourished at times of social crisis, when old tion of the town was wiped out These beliefs diminish, in value systems were collapsing and new ones following a mass murder-suicide, after people had not yet asserted themselves. tried to leave following the visit of a US sena- those who hold them, the They usually start as small groups which tor. In part two of his work Suicide For break off from the conventional consensus and “ awareness of ‘failure’ or espouse very different views of the real, the Socialism, Maurice Brinton looks at the phe- nomenon of religious sects and the relation to rejection – or the feeling possible and the moral. They have attracted socialism, concentrating on the tragedy of very diverse followings and achieved very Jonestown. variable results. Christianity started as a reli- of being useless. gion of slaves. HROUGHOUT history religious or In The Pursuit of the Millennium, Norman political faiths have exercised great positive objectives, either through instant Cohn shows how, many centuries later, 'the influence. They have moved armies political solutions in this world, or through people for whom (the Medieval Millennium) and motivated people to build both solutions in the hereafter (pie in the sky).” had most appeal were neither peasants, firmly T integrated into the life of the village, nor arti- cathedrals and concentration camps. In a society which either callously disregards Their success had had very little to do with (or just bureaucratically forgets) the very sans integrated into their . whether they were true or not. existence of thousands of its citizens, claims The belief in the Millennium drew its The fact that thousands (or millions) to make existence meaningful evoke an echo. strength from a population living on the mar- believed in them made of them real historical Sects (i.e. groups based on cults) may come to gin of society'. The New England Puritans con- and social forces. fill an enormous vacuum in people's lives. formed at one time to the norms of a harsh age Religious or political faiths (and the Most people are much happier in a situation by imprisoning and torturing their own dissi- Jonestown events show that the boundaries where they are needed, wanted and accepted dents. may be hard to define) have several things in for what they are, not condemned and looked They later became respectable. So did the common. down upon for not being what they are not. Mormon followers of Joseph Smith and Jim Jones poses as a prophet followers building Jonestown, the fallout from the massacre. rature/The Jonestown report/unknown d of cultish behaviour. Maurice Brinton asks: ects provide for us?

Brigham Young. Angeles Times, December 1, 1978.)(1) racial persecution. Marxism arose as a theory that would liber- Specific ingredients to disaffection from The first was initiated by a black seaman, ate a proletariat that had 'nothing to lose but established society had welled up in the 1960's Paul Cuffee, in 1815; the second by a black its chains', and has ended up imposing chains and early 1970's. physician, Martin Delaney, in 1850; and the on the proletariat. There had been the expansion of an third by a black minister, the Rev. Henry The followers of the Peoples Temple (mainly unpopular war in South East Asia, massive Highland Garnet, in 1855. poor blacks and alienated young whites) have upheavals over civil rights and a profound cri- All were designed to lead blacks to a world of made history by inaugurating the 'mass sis of values in response to the unusual peace and freedom by inciting them to make a revolutionary suicide'. Cults can clearly combination of unprecedented affluence on mass exodus either to Africa or to the West mature into mainstream institutions. Or disin- the one hand, and potential thermonuclear Indies. tegrate into jungle horror stories. holocaust on the other. The appeals proved most attractive to the A detailed analysis of cults would require an Revolutionary socialists – the whole axis of most exploited and dispossessed. analysis of their rhetoric and ideology, and of This separatism was often cloaked in the culture matrices in which they are embed- religious cloth. But it was the bitter racism and ded. When traditional answers socio-economic oppression experienced by the The present appeal of cults is related to the black masses in the post-Reconstruction major upheaval of our times. This is not seem inadequate people South, rather than religious exhortation, that primarily economic. Referring to the led so many blacks to support the cause of Jonestown events an American sociologist has “ are ripe for cults that emigration. written: 'The US consensus of values has bro- This was also true of the largest mass black ken down. promise prescriptions for separation movement of this century, Marcus There is, in some respects, an undermined Garvey's 'Back to Africa' movement of the authority in philosophy and theology. There is a better life. 1920's. the demise of metaphysics... there is no 'rock Calling his movement 'Black Zionism', in a weary land' that gives people something Garvey skillfully used symbols (flags, uniforms certain to hold onto. So people reach out and their propaganda vitiated by their erroneous and other regalia) and highly emotional rheto- grab at anything: an idea or an organisation. analyses of capitalism and their distorted ric to fire his followers. vision of socialism – had proved quite unable” “When traditional answers seem inadequate In the end thousands of enthusiasts lost people are ripe for cults that promise to make any lasting impact. money, suffered broken promises and became prescriptions for a better life. Most cults offer victims of outright fraud. Father Divine had three benefits: ultimate meaning, a strong Black separatism been inspired by Garvey. And Jim Jones was sense of community and rewards either in this inspired by Father Divine. world or the next. Predominantly black organisations such as As Earl Ofari points out in an article in the “When those prescriptions are linked to the the Peoples Temple have, moreover, deep roots International Herald Tribune (Dec. 9, 1978) 'the authoritarian style of a charismatic leader you in the very fabric of American society and of willingness of a sizeable segment of blacks to have an extremely powerful antidote to the American history. embrace movements that have run the cultural malaise of what sociologists call Before the Civil War there had already been gamut from 'Back to Africa' to Peoples anomie (rootlessness, aimlessness). (Los three separate attempts by US blacks to flee Temple stands as a reflection of their 44 22 Theory: Cults

utter desperation. claimed he had been visited on Mt. Shasta by Cults Collective Mania', Los Angeles Times, The lesson, surely, is not that cults hold a a vision of the legendary Count of St. Nov. 26, 1978.) particular fascination for blacks but that the Germain, an 18th century mystic. most deprived members of US society – those The Count gave Ballard a sip of 'pure Fulfiment and rationality who see the least hope of making it within electronic essence' and a wafer of 'concen- the system are the easiest prey for charlatans trated energy' (the religious symbolism, in The key thing to grasp about cults is that preaching that Paradise lies just over some modern garb, is here very clear) and told him they offer a 'fulfilment' of unmet needs. falsely technicolored rainbow'. to get rich. Biologically speaking such needs (to be This is clearly true: oppressed whites have It worked. By the time the dust settled in loved and protected, understood and valued) also sought refuge in 'solutions' of this kind. the 1940's Ballard claimed 350,000 followers are something much older and deeper than And it is a powerful rebuke to those trendy and the Internal Revenue claimed he'd bilked the need to think, argue or act autonomous- radicals (usually guilt-laden middle class his disciples of some $4 million. ly. They play a far deeper role than individuals) who seem to think that Joe Bell, a post-depression dandy, founded 'rationality' in the moulding of behaviour. oppression is good for you, that it somehow Mankind United by preaching that a race of People who haven't grasped this will never guarantees revolutionary purity. little men with metal heads who lived in the understand the tenacity with which the beliefs of certain cults are clung to, the way otherwise intelligent people get caught up in them, their imperviousness to rational disproof, or the organisational loyalties of various sect members. The surrender of individual judgment is one of the hallmarks of a 'well integrated' sect member. Jim Jones was called 'Father' or 'Dad' by his devotees. The poor blacks of the Jonestown commune hadn't just 'given up their self' to their charismatic father. Such were the physical, emotional and social deprivations they had grown up in that they had very little 'self' to surrender. And that 'self', such as it was, seemed to them of little relevance in changing their circumstances or the world they lived in. Some young middle class whites in the commune were prepared to surrender their 'self' in exchange for an emotional feedback they had lacked in earlier life. Others had already surrendered their 'self' to their parents. In joining the Temple they had merely found a new repository for it. But the twisted and manipulatory demagogues who lead various fascist and leninist cults are also – at least to begin with – pathetic individuals. They too are often the products of distorted backgrounds. They seek to blot out the intolerable parts of their life, first through the manipulation and later through the control of the lives of others. The needs of follower and leader feed insatiably upon one another. The relationship is symbiotic: each needs the other. Both seek instant, effortless, ready made solutions, rather than the achievement of understanding, which is a pre-condition for real action for change. Human beings often feel vaguely guilty about not knowing The Truth. When a gifted, persuasive leader comes along who says he SCIENTOLOGY: The most famous example of a ‘cultish’ religious sect is the group founded by L has it – and who presents it in a simple and Ron Hubbard, a charismatic science fiction writer. easy manner (even if it is a delusional system) people will listen. They will accept The Californian background centre of the earth would tell cultists what to some things about which they have do through his revelations. Bell ended up reservations, because they perceive that the The state of California was also part of the claiming a quarter of a million gullible Leader has 'good' answers about other cultural matrix of the Peoples Temple. It has followers who mortgaged homes and sold things. established a questionable claim to fame as other belongings before he was grounded in a Arthur Janov, author of 'The New the cult centre of the world. maze of legal problems. Consciousness' and of 'Primal Man', points Richard Mathison (author of 'Faiths, Cults In more recent times there have been the out that 'the surrender of the self, of and Sects of America') points out that 'as the (not specifically Californian) examples of Ron judgment, of feeling, has taken place long tide of seers, prophets, mystics and gurus Hubbard's Church of Scientology, of the before the outward appearances of a cult came to this natural haven for the Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung become bizarre'. disenfranchised and the uprooted, they grew Moon, of Chuck Dederich's Synanon, of the In an otherwise excellent article on Cults to be accepted as no less a part of the Divine Light Mission, of the International and the Surrender of Judgment' landscape than eucalyptus or foot-long Society for Krishna Consciousness... to (International Herald Tribune, Dec. 2, 1978) hotdogs'. mention only some of the 'religious' cults. he fails however to stress the specificity of Over the years California has spawned Recent estimates claim that more than two the Jonestown events. nearly every variant of cultic fraud. Between million Americans – mostly between the ages This wasn't a rational decision like the the wars it produced the 'Mighty I am' of 18 and 25 – are affiliated to cults. mass suicide at Masada.(3) It was not cultural- movement. And this doesn't include those affiliated to ly motivated like Saipan.(4) It didn't even Guy Ballard (an unemployed paper hanger) various 'political' cults. ('Psyching Out the resemble the fate of the Old Believers.(5) Theory: Cults 23

What happened during those last grizzly like partridges'. followers will remain loyal. The Leader is still hours in the Guyana commune was If he is a 'leftist' authoritarian devoid – as the shield. something historically new, a typical product yet – of the state power he is seeking, he will Even in Jonestown anything seemed better of our time: the era of propaganda and of the merely expel large numbers of his deviant than the other reality: the painful alternative loudspeaker, of brainwashing and of followers. Deviance – above all – cannot be of deprivation, material, emotional or totalitarian ideologies. tolerated. Such men would rather live in a intellectual. world peopled with heretics and renegades, Why didn't more people leave Jonestown? On temples: religious or It was because they would again be left revolutionary without hope. This was at least as potent a motive for staying as were the stories spread by Jones Sects like the Peoples Temple – or certain and his inner clique that there would be no revolutionary groups – offer more immediate point in seeking help in Georgetown, for the solutions than the more abstract religions, or Peoples Temple had its agents there too... than the more rational and self-managed who would 'get them'. forms of political radicalism. Even when Ryan and his team visited the They don't only offer a new super-family, a commune, only 14 out of over 900 members new group of people to hold onto, to support said they wanted to leave. To many, the figure one. seems trivial. To Jones it spelt catastrophe. The main attraction is that the cult leader Many sects live in political isolation. This is is real, visible, tangible. He may promote you a further mechanism for ensuring the control – or shout at you, abuse you, even spit at you. of the leaders. His sanctity or political omniscience (and I The members are not only 'rescued' from say 'his' deliberately, for popes or general their past, they are 'protected' from their own secretaries have almost universally been present. Such sects refrain from anything male) provide a spurious antidote to the that would bring their members into too malaise of rootlessness. close a proximity with the outside world. 'Join me' the Leader says (for most sects Recruitment is encouraged, but closely are actively proselytising agencies) 'for I am monitored. Members are urged to give up the one who knows'. 'Come to my Church (or their hobbies and their previous friends. become a member of my revolutionary Such external relationship are constantly organisation). For I am the one and only scrutinised, questioned, frowned upon, interpreter of the word of God (or of the deemed suspect. course of history). Find with us a purpose for United action with other groups – of a kind your useless life. Become one of the Chosen that may involve discussion or argument – is People (or a Cadre of the Revolution)'. avoided, or only allowed to 'trustworthy' We are not saying that all revolutionary leaders. The simplest course is to move, groups (or not even that all those we disagree lock, stock and barrel, to the jungles of with most strongly) are like the Peoples Guyana. In such an environment, after Temple. But who – in all honesty – can fail to surrendering their passports and all their see occasional disturbing similarities? wordly possessions, the members would be Who does not know of marxist sects which totally dependent on the leaders for their resemble the Temple – in terms of the news, their day-to-day needs, for the very psychological atmosphere pervading them?(6) content of their thoughts. Surviving members of the Japanese Red Open, non-authoritarian organisations Army Fraction or ex-members of the Socialist SLICK: Jim Jones makes a speech. encourage individuality and differences of Labour League (now WRP) who got out in Photograph: The Jonestown Institute opinion. But criticism impairs the pain- time need not answer these questions. killing effect of cults – and the cohesion of “The less justified a man is in claiming and keep the total allegiance of those who sects. When a cult is threatened both Leader excellence for his own self, the more ready he remain. and followers may go beserk. is to claim it for his Nation, his Race or his One even wonders whether (unlike most of The best analogy to this is the withdrawal Holy Cause” their supporters) they still believe in what reaction from a drug on which someone has - Eric Hoffer in 'The True Believer'. they preach – or whether the maintenance of become hooked. (P.S. Same, no doubt, applies to women.) their power has not become their prime Criticism impairs the efficacy of such concern. drugs. So does any suggestion that the In such organisations – the Leader may Jim Jones' rantings about defectors and Leader doesn't know, or that perhaps there is become more and more authoritarian and 'traitors' is not unique. It is encountered in a no hard and fast answer to certain questions. paranoid. If he has achieved institutional whole stratum of the political left. Many power he may kill, torture or excommunicate radical 'leaderships' boast of how they have (Stalin, Torquemada) increasing numbers of coped with previous deviations. But however his co-thinkers. Or he may order them 'shot 'unreal' the world they live in, the core of By Maurice Brinton n

NOTES: Jones were often greeted by Guyana's Prime Minister (4) During the US invasion of the South Seas Island of Forbes Burnham and his Deputy Prime Minister Ptolemy Saipan during World War II, Japanese officers used their Reid. Samurai swords to behead dozens, if not hundreds of (1) According to the Los Angeles Times (Dec. 14, 1978) And it was Viola Burnham (the President's wife) and their compliant troops. 'Burnham described himself five years ago as a socialist Ptolemy Reid who transported the Jonestown treasure Other soldiers obeyed orders to jump off cliffs into but not a marxist. Today he calls himself a marxist who (amounting to more then $1 million in currency, gold the sea. This event was an integral part of a culture does not yet lead a marxist administration'.. and jewelry) 'back to government headquarters in where dishonour was deemed worse than death. According to a veteran member of Georgetown's Georgetown' as early as November 20. (International (5) During the second half of the 17th century the Old diplomatic corps 'Jones professed to believe in a social- Herald Tribune, Dec. 26, 1978.) Believers broke from the Russian Orthodox Church and ism based on a multiracial kind of communal life. That's (3) In 73A.D., after a prolonged siege, 960 Jewish men were later threatened by the official Church with recon- what Mr Burnham is aiming for. and women besieged by the Romans for over a year version by decree. ' That's what may have drawn the Peoples Temple to decided, after full discussion, that mass suicide was Thousands burned themselves alive. They assembled the 'Cooperative Republic of Guyana'. (Whether Forbes preferable to surrender. in log huts, churches and other buildings, mostly in the Burnham was a 'marxist' or not, it did not prevent him This decision was taken despite the fact that it consti- northem regions of European Russia. 'They would speaking on an SLL - now WRP - platform in Trafalgar tuted a transgression of the Jewish religious code. ignite the buildings and perish. Square in 1958.) Another Jewish leader (Yoseph ben Matatyahw, later They felt it was far better to die in flames than to (2) Despite these differences of emphasis, agreement known as Flavius Josephus) had been trapped on anoth- burn eternally in Hell by accepting what they perceived proved possible among these 'fellow socialists'. When er hill, some years earlier. as an heretical church.' (see Frazer's 'The Golden important visitors later visited the commune (such as He took the opposite decision ... and lived to record Bough') California's Lt. Governor Mervyn Dymally), they and the Masada events. (6) All they lacked was the dedication to mass suicide. 24 Review: Maurice Brinton Going through the works Review: Maurice Brinton represented one of the most encouraging strands of socialism of recent times

For Workers Power – the selected Labour Party to the myth of constitutional going, into further abstractions. writings of Maurice Brinton "power". Brinton's accounts of popular Edited by Solidarity members in their monthly insurrections like Paris '68, also include AK Press journal wrote about their experiences, poked reports about the 1961 Belgian General fun at the devious tricks of respectable rivals Strike, the Portuguese Diary of 1974 -76, and ISBN: 1904859070 and provided resources for a growing the Polish Solidarnosc, Suddenly Last Paperback 379pp movement Summer in 1980-81. Today perhaps he would be writing of Argentina and THIS very welcome book has by an Venezuela. unkind twist of fate become the final Seven articles look explicitly publication of Maurice Brinton, at Castadoriadis – or Paul whose death was announced Cardan, Jean-Marc Coudray or recently. Pierre Chaulieu, as he also called It is a selection of the works of the himself. leading writer and activist in the old I have never been very sure Solidarity For Workers Power, 1961- about Castadoriadis despite his 92. general commitment to the ideas This group emerged from the of what used to be called wreck of the Communist Party of "workers ", if Great Britain after the Hungarian not the specific form. revolution, and the collapse of the It is specifically his thoughts on trotskyist publication, The what was acceptable about Newsletter. marxist theory that has been For more than thirty years, unclear to me. Solidarity published regular After re reading the Brinton's journals, and irregular but equally introductory articles, I looked informative booklets, on workers again at the originals, and at the power – or anything else related to numerous letters Castadoriadis it. The literature is still sought wrote into Solidarity Two, the third after today. major series to come from the Maurice Brinton was of course group. the pen name of the fairly well I emerged even more confused. known and popular activist Chris Perhaps I should buckle down and Pallis [1923-2005], from what was read the three volume collection of known as "the marxist- his work, Social and Political anarchists", though surviving Writings. group members would almost Still, to emphasis the positive certainly deny this title. points, it is remarkable that in all Brinton was a hospital the re-thinking that followed the consultant and wished to remain Hungarian revolution, Castadoriadis private. But his anonymity was had a hand in two of the most rudely broken in 1961 when a perceptive publications. right wing press campaign These were his Workers Councils exposed this, as Goodway says. and the Economics of the Self My recollection is slightly Managed Society (1957 , 58pp) and as different, with the actual cover Pierre Chaulieu, with CLR James, as being blown by the libertarian JR Johnson, and Grace C Lee in Peter Cadogan when both were Facing Reality , (1958 USA – listed on the editorial board of the old under Lee, 174pp]. series International Socialism journal. He of real revolutionary Solidarity's own Hungary '56 by was ejected from this post for this irrational opposition. Anderson, Andy [1964, 120p] completes the and foolish act. Regardless, Brinton kept his Brinton contributed to the journal of triumvirate. This last still provides the most identify hidden either as stated, or as "Martin libertarian socialism and its supplementary inspiring single account. Expect renewed Grainger". booklets, with a sharp intelligence born of interest next year with the anniversary. Modelled on the French Socialisme óu wide experience and 110% commitment. Apart from the forty selected articles, there Barbarie and the writer Cornelius It would be true to say that with Ken Weller are reprints of his main publications: an Castadoriadis, Solidarity began with probably he was the centre of a unique organisation. eyewitness account of Paris : May 1968, still the strongest industrial base in the UK, as This volume looks at the movements for in print, The Irrational in Politics, sexual ken Weller has pointed out. workers power around the world, especially repression and ideology, The Bolsheviks and The old International Socialists, soon to workers councils, and introduces the Workers Control. move from its federalist, non centralised writings of Cornelius Castadoriadis, Daniel This is his major work, still unparalleled group structure into a bolshevik style Cohn Bendit, , Ida Mett, Phil and without challenge. Socialist Workers Party, was small and Mailer and Murray Bookchin. Leninists still have no reply to Brinton over student based. The last of these had made a similar his third book above, and they chart the Both communists and trotskyists clung to journey to himself, through the communists decline from a ' workers society' in Russia their declining industrial membership, the and trotskyists, but unfortunately has kept into state capitalist stalinism – or worse – to Review: Maurice Brinton 25 of a brilliant socialist voice

1928, ignoring the instant repression of the workers council movement directly after the 1917 revolution. Factfile: Chris Pallis, a.k.a The article on Factory Committees and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is an excellent demolition job on Chris Goodey's criticism of Maurice Brinton (1923-2005) the book in Critique 4, 1975. He did the same to Chris Harman in the old series International Socialism Journal, “As the old society crumbles numbers 49 & 52, on the occasion of his similar ill founded attack. both the bourgeoisie and the I have always considered The Irrational in bureaucracy will have to be Politics to be a reasonable introduction to buried under its ruins. The real political socialisation. Regrettably there appears to be no follow roots from which they grew up or further volume on the subject, unless will have to be understood. you leap to Gramsci on hegemony. In this gigantic task the Some mention must be made of the other contributions of Solidarity which could not revolution to come will find its be included in this volume. strength and its inspiration in Among these are strong support for the the real experience of Committee of 100 in sharpening up the anti war/weapons CND movement in the 1960s, millions.” practical and political assistance to the and militant tenants, and the n Chris Pallis was born in India in promotion of specific rank and file union 1923 to a wealthy Anglo-Greek opposition in the motor industry from many car factories. family. He was educated in The special series of publications devoted and later at Oxford to this are particularly useful, university. but I suppose you could say that about n He joined the Communist Party quite a lot of the texts. of Great Britain after leaving Another useful service was the transla- tions of Solidarity publications to other lan- university but, was expelled for his guages. criticism of the Soveiets and joined These were listed in the journal in the On the Trotskyists. the Solidarity Wavelength column. n After a period in which he Coming now to the "critical" section, and here I think the strongest point concerns the concentrated on his studies, Pallis TOP THEORIST: Chris Pallis, aka Maurice books assessment of his attitude to joined what was to become the Brinton anarchism. Socialist Labour league. Editor David Goodway bravely states that n Expelled in 1960, he went on to from 1960 until the early 1980s. "Brinton's politics are fully anarchist", on help found Solidarity, a highly n He combined his political page 14, but in reality they weren't, and neither, incidentally are those of this influential grouping of libertarian writings with a distinguished reviewer. socialists. career in neurology, publishing the Any assessment of anarchism as a body of n In 1961 his livelihood was thrown well-known ABC of Brainstem ideas, and guide to action, must include the into jeopardy when his real name Death. strengths and weaknesses. was exposed in the press. After Such an assessment is not in the book, and n Key works include: "The given David Goodway's politics we can this he kept his name hidden. Bolsheviks and workers control" assume this is due to the material in hand, n Maurice Brinton was the pen and "The irrational in politics", not editorial neglect. name under which Chris Pallis along with numerous excellent Apart from numerous tangential articles, wrote and translated for Solidarity pamplets two extracts are directly relevant. There is a comprehensive and perceptive review of 's The Russian Anarchists, with a protesting letter and a First Workingmen's International, 1868-7. but federalism, decentralism and local con- further response, and a comment on Murray His assessment of Kropotkin is to say the trol from anarchism. Don't get me started on Bookchin's Spontaneity and Organisation, least, open to question. Readers will be organisation... on the occasion of the reprint of the article. pleased to learn that Brinton approved of Ida The biographies of that generation so far As Goodway points out, Brinton has no Mett and G.P. Maximoff . produced seem quite inadequate. This book time for either Michael Bakunin or Peter On Bookchin, continuing his criticism of which goes some way to preparing a full Kropotkin. anarchism's "organisational phobia", he Brinton biography is fortunately a departure He regards the former an authoritarian, agrees with the American's definition which from that trend. muddle-headed conspirator and the latter as equates spontaneity with autonomy. It also whets the appetite for a full history a romantic visionary, too abstract for reality. Of course, it has often been pointed out of Solidarity, I wrote a short account some These sentiments however strongly held that almost any statement made about " time ago but the full authorised version and are not a substitute for a comprehensive anarchism" can be contradicted by another ongoing membership survey will be eagerly judgement and ignore the role that Bakunin definition. awaited. played for example in counterposing the Broadly my own ideas about workers' anarchist emphasis on workers control to socialism are based on some of the econom- the State based politics of Karl Marx in the ic and historical perspectives from marxism By Alan Woodward n 26 Review: Durruti in the Spanish revolution Red dream Review: Durruti and the anarchists

Durruti in the Spanish Revolution By Abel Paz (trans: Chuck Morse) Pub. AK Press ISBN 978-1904859505 Pbk. 795pp. Price: £20.00

FIRST up, this is one big book, albeit slightly misleading in its title, as the section detailing Durruti's involvement in the Revolution proper (from July 1936) takes up less than half the book – although one could equally argue that he spent his entire adult life fighting for the revolution. The story of the various editions of this book is covered in detail in the book, but in summary it is based on the second Spanish edition of 1996. In it Paz, not an academic but both a self-taught historian and participant in some of the struggles described in the book, takes a straightforward chronological approach to Durruti's life, assembling, as he goes, all the available documentation and personal testimonies into a single narrative. As Molina' s afterword explains, the book is not a work of hagiography, the desire is not to make Durruti into a superman or saint, rather his life is taken as exemplary of a whole generation (or two) of Spanish anarchists who lived their lives in the service of an ideal they felt was both realisable and realistic, and one which they were determined to make happen. The first section of the book details Durruti's early life, the first 35 years or so, starting with his family background in Leon, his involvement in the industrial struggles during the First World War which led to his first period of exile in France and his con- TO WAR: CNT Fighters crossing the Ebro river on the way to Zaragoza scious adoption of anarchism. In return the CNT organised defence was originally intending to go to Mexico, but The period after the war saw Durruti in the squads. And the right planned its seizure of Durruti could be very persuasive). thick of the struggle of the Spanish working power which saw Primo de Riviera impose his In spring 1925 they were being as enter- class and in particular the CNT, fighting both dictatorship in 1923. prising as ever, obtaining much needed intransigent employers and a succession of repressive governments. The socialists and their union, the UGT, financing for various local anarchist projects, They struggled to deal with the chronic decided to sit this one out. The CNT would including a Rationalist School. However due problems caused by recession, structural not have the luxury and Durruti quickly to the unconventional methods used to inadequacy, inequitable land-ownership, made his way to France (again) where he was obtain the cash, the pair were soon on the together with the struggles between the involved in more revolutionary activity. move again, together with Gregorio Jover and various political cliques, the monarchy, the November 1924 saw an unsuccessful Alejandro Ascaso, arriving in Chile in June military and the Catholic church, meant the uprising against the dictatorship in Spain 1925. class struggle was carried on at an intensity and the next month Durruti and Francisco One bank robbery later and the group were much greater than most of Europe. Ascaso were on the move again, this time to off to Buenos Aires and later in the year The class struggle had to be equally Latin America, via New York and Cuba. Durruti had secured work as a port worker intense to stop the working class being made In Cuba they contacted local anarchists, and was in touch with the local Argentinian the victims of economic mismanagement, became port workers and were soon in the anarchists. political infighting, colonialist and economic thick of things again. A move to the interior Following several bank and other deprivation and social misery. saw them working as cane-cutters, and again robberies, which were blamed on a group of On the streets this struggle took many they were active organising workers and Spanish revolutionaries, Durruti and the forms besides the usual strikes and causing trouble. others left Argentina and sailed for France in lock-outs, demonstrations and so forth. In Rather too much trouble as they were February 1926. particular the employers (aided and abetted wanted for the murder of their sadistic Having arrived in the country Durruti and by the police and the Church) used gangs of employer and had to to make their excuses 200 other Spaniards were rounded up on gunmen to shoot down union militants. and hopped on a boat to Mexico (not that it suspicion of being involved in a plot to kill Review: Durruti in the Spanish revolution 27 of freedom fought the world for their vision

the CNT was forced underground again. Yet by April 1931 Spain had become a Republic and the door was open to Durruti and the other exiles to resume their activities in Spain. And one of the first things that Durruti noticed was that all the conspiring with Republicans had compromised the anarchists' traditional opposition to all forms of party politics. He was not impressed, and neither were many members of the FAI. There was a general recognition that a successful social democracy would sap the revolutionary potential of the current crisis, itself the product of the intrinsic socio-economic contradictions of Spain, exacerbated by the reactionary policies of the Catholic church. Playing political games in Madrid would do nothing to solve the problems caused by the monopolistic control of the land in large areas of the country by a few, often absent landowners, who saw little need to modernise agricultural production and were certainly not interested in any redistribution of the land or popular control of it. The Republican take-over had had some benefits, with some prisoners being released, but many CNT and FAI militants were still behind bars. It also allowed the formation of a Catalan regional government but that threatened to divide the CNT. That the new governments were no friends to the CNT was soon seen in attacks on the May 1st rally in Barcelona, but that didn't stop some CNT people wanting to do deals with the Catalan government. Indeed certain elements in the CNT were pushing for some form of accommodation with the new regimes to allow the union to operate legally and without hindrance – the beloved King of Spain Alfonso XIII in July ruling class in Spain and he fled into exile in oblivious to the fact that such a policy would 1926, who happened to be making a visit to France. The new government, still a dictator- break down as soon as the CNT proved itself Paris at the time. ship, but under General Berenguer instead, capable of organising sustained resistance to Durruti would not be going anywhere fast attempted a liberalisation of the law, which any government – or if it kept its activities for a while as not only were the French soon had unintended consequences. purely legal, then the anarcho-syndicalism at holding him, but he was wanted by the The CNT took the opportunity to re-emerge the heart of the union would be destroyed by Spanish and Argentine authorities as well. from underground where the repression of compromise and co-option. the previous incumbent had driven them, and After a year and much agitation on his behalf, Durruti and other FAIstas clearly saw this launched a weekly newspaper and held a Durruti, Fransisco Ascaso and Gregorio danger and organised within the CNT to national meeting with the aim of reorganising Jover were finally released in July 1927. oppose the reformists. the union, which proved to be a success. Ready to recommence the struggle. The class struggle continued anyway, and Indeed so much so that it re-awakened the But the authorities were soon on the tail early 1932 saw an attempt to institute liber- dread of the ruling class for a resurgent again, this time imprisoning Durruti and tarian communism by the workers in Alto proletariat, and before 1930 was out the Ascaso in Lyon for having false papers. This Llobregat coal fields and surrounding vil- government had instituted a crack-down on time they weren't released until October lages. the CNT and FAI. 1928, without papers and with nowhere to go. This did nothing to calm matters as a strike Which was promptly put down by the Using their contacts they made their way to in Madrid saw Barcelona come in out in authorities, and leading FAI militants, includ- Berlin and thence to Belgium where they solidarity in November 1930, which resulted ing Durruti were promptly rounded up and stayed for while, always at the centre of in further repression, but it also saw the CNT deported with many ending up in Spanish intrigue, working with Catalanist subversives contacted by Republican "revolutionaries" to Guinea (in Equatorial Africa) or, in Durruti's in their failed January 1929 plot against see whether they would support the case to the Canaries, but this did nothing to Primo de Rivera's dictatorship. overthrow of the dictatorship. quell social and economic unrest or However, within a year de Rivera had The political and military revolt failed and the splits in the CNT which led to the outstayed his welcome even amongst the formation of a few small syndicalist 44 28 Review: Durruti in the Spanish revolution

unions which declared themselves free of the areas where they were weaker than the UGT everyone that the endemic and chronic "tyranny of the FAI" ! (Madrid and Asturias) but less favourably problems of Spain could not be settled by On release Durruti and other FAIstas were where the CNT was much stronger. playing Parliamentary games. soon deep in conspiracy mode, planning Another change in the make-up of the The organised section of the Spanish insurrection, for January 1933, with national government and continuing pres- working class – despite being hampered by Barcelona as the epicentre and significant sure from both rural and urban workers saw legal repression – was still a potent force, uprisings in Levante and Andalusia. the eventual release of the insurrectionaries whilst the military and right-wing plotters However, it failed to catch alight and was in April1934. also remained well-organised and equally soon put down, with great brutality in places Durruti had arrived in Barcelona by May determined. such as Casas Viejas. The failure of the 1934 where he was reunited with his family, Sooner or later the matter of Spain would uprising not only brought down repression to the point of undertaking child care for his have to be decided one way or another – on the participants, it deepened the splits in daughter Mimi, whilst his partner Emilienne social revolution or fascism. Durruti and his the CNT between the revolutionaries and the Morin was out earning money for them all. Los Nosostros were at the reformists, with Durruti eventually being The class struggle continued unabated heart of debates within the CNT and FAI as to arrested in Sevilla in April 1933, staying throughout this period with strikes and how best to organise the workers for the incarcerated until October that year. boycotts amongst both urban and rural forthcoming battle. Meanwhile the Spanish government was workers, even though the CNT remained a However, his freedom lasted only a couple of months, by June 1935 he had been impris- oned again. Whilst he, and many other CNT and FAI mil- itants languished in prison, the politicians continued with their plans and intrigues. The Communists cemented their place inside the Socialist Party, and started winning the left of the socialists towards more CP oriented policies; whilst amongst the non-Stalinist marxists there was a coming together to form the POUM. The right too was cementing alliances, with the figures of Hitler and Mussolini beginning to loom on the horizon, their support being vital to the success of any right-wing take-over of the country. Even amongst the Syndicalists there were moves to re-unite those unions that had split from the CNT. War clouds were gathering and being isolated was the surest way to be defeated. Yet solidarity had to be on the basis of firm and meaningful proposals and none of the political parties would or could offer the working class anything that would significantly improve their situation, whilst a victory for the right would mean even greater repression. Being underground was taking its toll on the CNT both in terms of being able to organise, but also because the CNT could only function properly when the members 1935: Durruti addresses a mass rally of anarchist supporters in the bullring at Leon could meet openly and regularly and have free access to ideas and information, and itself in a continual state of crisis and fell at banned organisation. when mandated delegates to regional and the same time. There was, however, in certain parts of national committees could be directly told The ensuing elections proved a disaster for Spain, a move towards a more explicit what the members wanted and removed if the left, whilst the CNT advocated social alliance with elements in the UGT. This was they stepped outside that mandate. revolution as being the only valid response to seen by many as an attempt to bring the anar- Consequently the "leadership" had a the threat of fascism, and the resulting chists under the wing of the Socialist party. tendency to develop ideas of its own and to abstentionsim can be clearly seen in the low At the same time the insignificant Spanish conduct discussions with political forces turnout in places where the CNT was strong. Communist Party (acting under orders from outside the remit of the CNT's actual policy With the election of a right-wing Moscow, in-line with the new "Popular Front" and objectives. government, the only logical response was to policy) merged itself into the Socialist Party. And primary amongst their ideas was that organise a general strike and revolutionary Political intrigues also continued both in to get to the stage of being "legal" again, to uprising against the new government, with Madrid and Catalonia, with an attempted get their militants out of jail and being able to Durruti playing a prominent part in the new uprising by the Socialists and the Catalanists conduct their business correctly they would Revolutionary Committee based in Zaragoza. against a right-wing government in October have to make some sort of deal with the Early December saw the plans put into 1934 – immediately preceded by the arrest of left-wing politicians (who had in the previous action, with early successes in places such numerous CNT and FAI militants including years been more than happy to jail, deport as Aragon, Valencia and Leon. But it failed to Durruti, even though the CNT had not partic- and persecute them) which would result in become generalised and the government ipated in the planning of the uprising. the left-wing parties getting parliamentary forces were able to break the strike and Indeed the Catalan authorities did power. cracked down heavily on the CNT and the FAI, everything they could to prevent the CNT The matter became acute in February 1936 with the CNT being outlawed, union halls from generalising the revolt – but ended up with the downfall of yet another government closed and papers banned. handing the streets over to the right and the and the holding of a General Election. Durruti, like many prominent participants militants to the military. Elsewhere, The CNT held a meeting to discuss their was jailed, and transferred to Burgos to primarily in the Asturias, a region where the position on the election (although because of reduce the likelihood of local revolutionaries UGT was the dominant force, the uprising the unions' illegal status none of the people freeing him. was initially successful, but was put down attending could be properly mandated to Meanwhile events had pushed the UGT and with great ferocity within two weeks. Durruti make any particular decision) and the the Socialist party further to the left and remained in prison until April 1935. outcome was a re-iteration of the standard there was talk of a workers alliance, which On his release he was once more actively anarchist line on abstention and a was viewed favourably by CNT activists in engaged, as it was apparent to just about commitment to make the workers Review: Durruti in the Spanish revolution 29

understand that electing a left-wing libertarian communist society would take – workers, not the politicians. government wasn't going to solve their with syndicalists arguing that the CNT was It was very soon apparent that if the problems and that a right-wing / military coup the model, whilst anarchists argued that an military coup was to be defeated it would could be expected soon after. organisation designed for fighting the class have to be done by the workers themselves – Indeed General Franco tried to initiate a struggle was ill-equipped to take on the role. but even with the arms and supplies taken coup before the left could form a government, They wouldn't have long to wait before from the barracks in Barcelona they were but it failed to materialise – he was punished testing their ideas in practice as the long- woefully under-equipped for a prolonged by being made the military commander of the expected (except by the Socialist government struggle. Canary Islands. ministers) military and right-wing coup was Durruti and others therefore organised The voting shows that abstention took eventually launched in July 1936. several columns of workers militias to try second place to expediency in most workers Durruti and the rest of Los Nosotros group and take Zaragoza, whilst, at the same time, minds, with the left getting a very narrow had prepared themselves for the coup, as had hoping to ignite the flames of social majority of the votes cast and a sufficient the CNT in Barcelona and surrounding area. revolution as they went. Parliamentary majority to govern, provided After much disagreement the CNT had The columns managed to get within about the coalition of forces held together. adopted Garcia Oliver's proposals to 20 miles of Zaragoza before being brought to The new government did amnesty many of immediately set up workers militias in the a halt by the better equipped military forces the prisoners in February 1936, although event of a military uprising, something and despite much heroism they were unable some prisons had already been opened by Durruti had initially opposed, arguing for a to break through to the city. popular demand immediately prior to this, guerilla approach, that the creation of Durruti was adamant that the column whilst other CNT members were still militias would inevitably end up creating an which bore his name be organised on detained behind bars as their offences were army run on traditonal lines, which would be anarchist lines, as for him, the revolution deemed to be social and criminal and not contradiction with anarchist principles. had to be embodied by the forces fighting for political. The majority in the CNT had however been it, a hierarchical force obeying military As predicted the election solved nothing, as persuaded that only militias stood any discipline would never make an anarchist during the next six months the class struggle chance of defeating the uprising militarily. revolution. intensified, with land seizures by peasants, Meanwhile the Catalan government had The shortage of weapons in the column church burnings, over 200 partial and over done little, except refuse to arm the workers. meant that many volunteers were active in 100 general strikes, bombings and If the coup was to be defeated it would have the newly organised collectives that had shootings. to be done by the CNT sprung up in its wake in Aragon. The government tried to repress However, once the initial reserves the direct action of the workers of ammunition had been exhausted whilst using the threat from the the column was unable to under- right to hang onto power. take further large-scale offensive Everywhere people were organis- action, much to its and Durruti's ing for the final showdown, with frustration. approximately 1.5 million workers Meanwhile in Barcelona itself, organised in both the CNT and UGT the CNT's decision to co-operate (out of a total of eight million with the other anti-fascist forces workers) and with right-wing was beginning to bear unwelcome organisations with over half a fruit. million in them (including priests, They were not in control of policy former soldiers and right-wing and making, the continuation of the fascist activists.) Generalitat (the Catalonian govern- It is important to note that ment) and their collaboration with membership of a union did not it meant that whatever they did in necessarily mean whole-heartedly some way legitimised it and agreeing with the politics of the strengthened it, even to the point organisation. where workers control of produc- With no unemployment benefit a a tion and distribution ran the risk of union card meant access to the creating a form of state socialism BIG GUN: ‘King Kong’, the armoured car of the Durruti column. mutual aid of one's fellow workers. with anarchists in control. Equally in well-unionised areas employers on the ground with only the bare minimum of A regional CNT meeting in early August would approach the unions when they were arms and support from loyalist military and discussed the matter, but on balance decided hiring people , so possession of a union card police. it was better to continue the collaboration in could mean the difference between having a Yet after two day's hard fighting, not only the name of anti-fascist unity rather than job and not. had the coup been defeated in Barcelona, but risk civil war within a civil war, one that And it made sense to join the biggest union the the CNT and other militants had secured might be in the CNT's favour in Catalonia, but locally or in your particular trade. This may the army barracks and obtained much much less so in the rest of Spain. well explain why both the CNT and UGT had needed weaponry, but not without much loss There was also the international dimension areas where they were dominant – success of life. In much of Catalonia the story was to consider – now that Nazi Germany and bred success. Thus a union card was, for much the same, but elsewhere in Spain the Fascist Italy were pouring men and materiel many workers, a practical necessity, rather coup had been successful, in others it was into the rebel held areas and taking an active than a statement of allegiance to a particular barely contained. role in the fighting, it seemed imperative not ideology. In Madrid, the CNT was weaker and had to jeopardise any chance of aid from friendly The only benefit of the left's election win great difficulty getting hold of the necessary governments, in particular France where it was that it gave the CNT a much-needed weapons, with the Republican government was hoped the Popular Front government opportunity to emerge into the open and trying to reassure the people that the coup would, at least, keep up the supply of war re-organise itself, resume publication of its was under control and therefore arming them materiel (France having been the main national papers and so forth, and not least was not necessary – at least arming the CNT supplier of war material to Spain prior to hold its Fourth National Congress in was not necessary. 1936.) – although it was highly unlikely that Zaragoza on May 1st 1936. A general strike was organised in Zaragoza, any government would knowingly supply The pressing issues of the day were but disastrously the CNT workers there weapons to revolutionaries. obvious to all: to re-admit the errant allowed themselves to be rounded-up and the Furthermore although Catalonia was well- syndicalists, provided they respected military took control. equipped with workshops it lacked certain national decisions and to invite the UGT to However, with the defeat of the military in basic raw materials to enable it to be self- join with the CNT in an alliance to overthrow Barcelona by the CNT, the way was open for sufficient in war fighting ability, hence the capitalism and institute a society based on the revolution to break out. The workers ambitious but abandoned plan to capture the workers' democracy (an invitation that fell on took control of their work places, transport Bank of Spain's gold reserves and deaf ears). and other services were collectivised and use the gold to buy weapons. The CNT also discussed what form a power seemed to be in the hands of the The gold eventually ended up in 44 Buenaventura Durruti (1896-1936)

"We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a while. For, you must not forget, we also know how to build. It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and in America, and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place, and better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth, there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute"

n He started work at the age of 14 in the railway yard in León. n At the age of 21 he was forced into exile for the first time following a strike he helped organise. n On his return in 1920, he founded a group which tried to blow up King Alfonso XIII, assassinated a cardinal, and attempted to attack the Barcelona barracks. n They fled to South America, where they robbed banks, raised strikes and organised anarchist groups. n Durruti was imprisoned in France upon his return to Europe, but massive interna- tional pressure saw him freed. n Back in Spain, as the revolution started Durruti was instrumental in organising the defence of Barcelona. n The Durruti column left the city to relieve Zaragoza, but were unable to capture it. n Durruti was asked to help defend Madrid as the fascists advanced, and led his column to the battle, where he was killed. Review: Durruti in the Spanish revolution 31

Stalin's grubby blood-stained hands, but at University City. Losses on both sides were Spain to find all of the places mentioned.) least a flow of arms into the Republican areas terrible but they managed to stabilise the One major disappointment is the index. was resumed. front and prevent the rebels from breaking Although we are given three indicies – Inevitably the arms came at a political as through. personal names, places and organisations – well as financial price. The previously November 19th saw a slight lull in the they only tell you which pages the words insignificant Communist Party was rewarded fighting and Durruti visited the front-line to indexed appear on. So we get a column of with posts in the Madrid government and inspect his forces' positions and check on numbers for Durruti and the CNT but no fur- socialist and communist militias were the state of the column's fighters – all greatly ther detail. Also missing are periodicals – so prioritised for the supply of arms. Elsewhere fatigued and desperate need of relief. if you want to know what pages Solidaridad in Spain, by late September 1936 it was He got out of his staff car to speak to some Obrera appears on, you'll have to make your obvious that the military uprising and militiamen and was shot before he could own index. associated attack on workers organisations resume his seat in the car. He was rushed to Not being a Spanish speaker (or reader) and had established itself in about half of Spain. hospital, but the doctors thought this injury not having the original text I can't comment The militias had managed to prevent a too severe for any chance of surviving any on the quality of the translation but I can say complete take-over but equally had failed to operation they could have attempted to that overall the text reads extremely well. roll it back from areas it had captured. The remove the bullet from his chest and patch Chuck Morse has done an excellent job in Basque region had fallen and with it the up the massive internal damage. making this book readable – it needs to be at Bilbao armaments factories, and the Asturias He died early the next day. The news was a nearly 800 pages long – with the only minor were now isolated from the rest of terrible blow to the CNT militias and those gremlins appearing to be those relating mili- Republican Spain. working in factories and the fields. His body tary terminology. Even Durruti's home of Leon was under the was returned to Barcelona where a massive The bullet that killed Durruti is described control of the military who could also look funeral was organised (and an investigation as "9 calibre long" when calibre is a measure forward to uninterrupted support coming begun as to how he had died). of the diameter of a bullet or shell; artillery is over the border from Portugal. Even Madrid Given the political and military situation in a couple of times said to be bombing a was vulnerable to a well-organised military Madrid at this time it is understandable that position – when shelling is the usual term assault if Franco had wanted to do capture it. there has been so much speculation as to employed and most bizarrely the nationalist On the Aragon front at least the revolution how Durruti died, who fired the fatal shot. attack on Madrid is said to have been made proceeded apace – at least in areas not Matters are not helped by the differences in with the aid of trimotor fighters (nobody ever subject to the depredations of the marxist the contemporary accounts and subsequent built a fighter plane with three engines – I militias who not only stole from the villages "revelations". presume "bomber" is meant (three-engine but also attempted to dissolve the organs of The book assesses all the attempts to make bombers were built by both Germany and self-government and control the villages had sense of his death and the "conspiracy Italy in this period)) and battleships. established, much to the disgust to those in A glance at the map of Spain will show that the CNT columns. if there's one place you won't find a To consolidate their position the Aragon He got out of his staff battleship, it's in Madrid. (I'm not sure what Defence Council and the Aragon Federation is intended in the context.) of Collectives were established in early car to talk to some Physically the book, even though it is an October 1936. 800 page paperback, has withstood my Mid-October saw the Durruti column in “militiamen and was shot reading it without any problems and has a action holding off a nationalist advance in its good feel to it. area, on the north bank of the Ebro facing before he could resume Overall, one has to congratulate the author, Zaragoza, only to be immediately faced with a translator, AK Press and everyone else typical piece of back-stabbing from the his seat. associated with the production of this book central government when it, at the urging of with producing a book worthy of the subject the Soviets, issued a militarisation decree, matter. Paz's treatment of the events in which would have completely changed the theories" surrounding it. There was much Durruti's life, is aimed at explaining the rea- status and forms of organisation of the CNT disinformation circulated at the time and sons for them, rather than attempting much ever since the competing accounts have been by way of critique. and other militias. ” fueled as much by ideology as evidence. He is, however, critical of the CNT This was swiftly followed by the nationali- Indeed Paz is unable to get to the bottom of "leadership" especially during the civil war sation of the war industries and agriculture when basic principles were thrown overboard which would take them from the worker's the mystery and thinks it unlikely it ever will to expedite fighting. committees that had been running them. be solved. So whether Durruti was shot by a However, the book also goes a long way to Faced with the possibility of exclusion from fascist sniper, a communist shot him in the explaining the reasons for the positions (gov- all effective decision-making and access to back, an anarchist angry at the CNT-FAI's ernmental and otherwise) taken by leading arms, the CNT then took the final step of betrayal of anarchist principles killed him or, members of the FAI and the CNT and will over-turning its own anarchist basis by as may have been the case, he shot himself prove invaluable for anyone wanting a joining, at the beginning of November, the by accident, we shall never know. detailed explanation of the run up to the civil National Government. A government whose The afterword by Jose Molina brings the war and the revolution. first major decision was to abandon its own reader up to date with various stories that Wisely Paz finishes the book with Durruti's capital Madrid, now coming under pressure have surfaced since the first edition of the funeral with only a brief section on what from the forces of the right. book was published, but it is to be regretted happened after Durruti died. In the streets, however, the ordinary people that (for whatever reasons) the bibliography Whether the revolution died with Durruti, of Madrid, already alarmed by the terror that that it mentions as being in the second is another matter. One could equally argue was being unleashed by the rebel forces, who Spanish edition, has been omitted in the that had he lived he would have had to have were threatening to kill two million reds English edition. compromised as much as fellow FAIstas. between Madrid and Barcelona, were Fortunately the notes are fairly comprehen- sive – although I spotted that the numbering Fortunately Paz doesn't get bogged down in constructing barricades. such a discussion, leaving that for readers to Soon battle was joined in earnest, with of the notes in the text of the afterword follows on from the previous chapter whilst discuss amongst themselves. nationalist forces breaking into the city. In I can't imagine anyone now undertaking the notes themselves are numbered in a new response militia units from Barcelona and the necessary research to write a completely sequence. the Aragon front were rushed to the city to new biography of Durruti, or that there The text is amply complemented by the help in the defence. remains much more to discover about him. many well-chosen photographs, and the Among those forces was a force made up Therefore I can say without much fear of illustrations also include reproductions of from, amongst others, elements of the contradiction that this will be the definitive various pages from anarchist and other Durruti Column, and perhaps even more biography of Durruti, and as such it is publications. importantly, Durruti himself, which arrived something I can totally recommend. on November 14th. The map of Madrid is vital for following the Almost immediately, and before they had to debate about how Durruti died and the other time to fully prepare themselves, they were maps help with understanding the detail of thrown into the battle raging around Madrid's the fighting (but you'll need a proper map of By Richard Alexander n 32 Obituary: John Taylor Caldwell Soul of Glasgow’s Obituary: John Taylor Caldwell worked his whole life to keep the flame of anarchism alive

ITH the death of John Taylor Neanderthal Man featured in an instalment of and direct action rather than in reliance on Caldwell aged 95 on 12th Wells' Outline of History, he went on to read political parties, whether social democratic January 2007 we have lost the widely in history, literature, poetry, philoso- or revolutionary. W last significant link with an phy and political ideas, pursuing knowledge This kind of anarchism is assumed to have anarchist anti-parliamentary form of as best he could whilst working in the menial become extinct during the inter-War period, socialism/communism which flourished in jobs open to a working-class youngster crushed between the pincers of the the first few decades of the last century. without connections or qualifications in an Parliamentary Labour Party and the Born on 14 July 1911 in Whiteinch, era of high unemployment. Communist Party. Glasgow, the third child of a family of six, His first job was that of page-boy in a fash- But in a few places, notably Glasgow, it John moved to Belfast at the age of three, but ionable Glasgow cinema; then, as bell-boy continued to flourish, thanks to individuals following his mother's death, in 1925 the and subsequently waiter, on the Anchor like John and his mentor, , who family moved back to Glasgow, where he and Line's transAtlantic ships. was the main organiser and theoretician of his younger siblings endured semi-starvation When in Glasgow he continued to frequent this movement. and frequent beatings at the hands of their political meetings, and his first encounter Initially John acted as a steward at father and stepmother. with Guy Aldred at the Glasgow May Day meetings, chalked the streets to advertise meetings, and sold pamphlets. His trips to New York whilst working as a waiter were pressed into service as an opportunity to try to make contact with the councilist and anarchist groups there. Some contact was indeed made with the Vanguard group, and John brought back supplies of their paper, together with copies of Mattick's International Council Correspondence. The USM took an important part in all the political actions of its time, from support of the Spanish revolutionary cause in 1936-8, through the anti-war struggles of 1939-45 (in which John himself was a ), and on to the anti-militarist and peace campaigns of the Fifties and Sixties. All this was achieved against a background of ever-present poverty, with barely enough money to eat, never mind provide meeting rooms or publish its propaganda. The most intense period of activity was undoubtedly 1936-38 in support of the Spanish revolutionary cause. Meetings were held every night and funds had to be raised to send two comrades (Ethel MacDonald and Jenny Patrick) to Spain. But the group was in desperate need of a printing press. Amazingly, Aldred persuaded a "Roneo" salesman to let them have a duplicator on approval, which was immediately pressed into service to produce a broadsheet, Regeneracion, giving uncensored news from Spain. In 1938 John finally left his seafaring employment and began to work full time for the USM. Initially he was Dues secretary, but quickly became Minutes secretary for the meetings. THE GANG: In this shot, John Taylor Caldwell is stood to the far right of the picture, and Guy More important, however, was his work in Aldred is sixth from the right. the Strickland Press in getting out the pamphlets and paper for the movement. One Beyond a knowledge of the three Rs demonstration in 1934 left such a deep of his first experiences with the press was acquired in a Belfast elementary school, impression on him that later in the year he the feverish activity needed to get out the John was completely self-educated. joined Aldred's United Socialist Movement first issue of The Word for the May Day march He had the insatiable thirst for knowledge (USM), part of a tradition of libertarian in 1938. which until fairly recently was a characteris- socialism going back to the days of William Having just acquired Tom Anderson's old tic feature of working class radical Morris and the Socialist League. printing press, the USM quickly put it to use movements. It was a socialism based on working-class to produce the new paper. Jenny Patrick, Stimulated by the striking picture of self-activity manifest in workers' councils who had had experience in a print shop, got Obituary: John Taylor Caldwell 33 proudest tradition the type ready and had to hand-feed the and at Willie McDougall's Workers' Open machine. It was an old treadle machine i.e. Forum, but complaints were made that he powered by footpower, largely John's! spoke on "highbrow" topics. A thousand copies of the 16-page issue A revealing example of this, John recalled, were required. Since the machine could only was his talk on "The Value of Poetry" to the produce two pages at a time, 8000 sheets had USM Study Circle. Prompted by the to be hand-fed and treadled at the rate of 500 perennial Marxist debate on whether poetry sheets per hour. has intrinsic value or must always be The job was still not finished after subordinated to the needs of the class midnight, and neighbours were complaining struggle, John argued for the former. about the noise of the machine. So work had In a closely-argued address, which now to resume next morning. By half-past eleven seems something of a philosophical tour de they had finished, just in time for the May force, he made the case for the enduring Day procession. It is good to record that value of poetry and of all art: their efforts were rewarded when The Word “Our Marxism, our pacifism, our anarchism changed hands "as readily as if it had been a are symptoms of an imperfect society. We free handbill". gather to discuss them in a mood of solemn By 1939, with the help of the Strickland seriousness, as a doctor might diagnose a bequest, the Strickland Press was set up at patient. It is not a pleasant occasion... Our 104-106 George Street. deliberations belong to the bedside of a sick At first printing was farmed out to a society. We want to cure it... commercial printer, although typesetting was “In the new society we will lay aside our still done in-house. However, towards the armoury of "isms" and our perpetual belliger- end of the War, when the Scottish print union ence. In a state of cooperation we will find discovered that women (Jenny and Ethel) freedom to live much more fully than before. were doing the work, they forced the printer STALWART: Above, Caulwell In July 1958. Our minds, and what may be termed our to stop accepting jobs from the Strickland Below, in 1986. souls, will grow to a much greater magnitude, Press. and the whole compass of our lives will It then had to acquire its own linotype and expand. printing too was done in-house, under “Then we will discover the beauty that has Ethel's close supervision. Initially she always been there: the beauty that lies wouldn't allow John, or anyone else, around us, and within us, and which offers anywhere near "Big Bertha" (the largest of the greatest compensation for being alive.” the Press's machines). “The talk was profusely illustrated; but But when Ethel became incapacitated with before long "my audience was in a deep multiple sclerosis in 1959, John had to do trance, as still as figurines unearthed by more and more of the printing work. He archaeologists. Maybe they were afraid to mastered the linotype, and did more or less move in case they woke up..." everything in the Press for the next dozen or It was clear to John that there was little more years. sympathy for such ideas – to most of his The Word continued to be published at 104- companions poetry was irredeemably 106 George Street until, in 1962, the Press middle-class and largely irrelevant to the was forced to remove to Montrose Street. class struggle. The George Street premises were the heart This led John to think of himself as a poor of this anarchist oasis in Glasgow, as a meet- speaker, and also to his contributions to the ing-place, bookshop, printing press and group being generally undervalued. Yet it is social centre for a whole generation of questionable whether, without his unselfish Glaswegians. John managed to capture this and unflagging effort as the USM's in an epitaph for the group's old HQ written workhorse, the group could have kept up the after it had been bulldozed for a new struggle, even before Ethel's untimely death. University of Strathclyde building: After it, there is no doubt of his indispens- When the meeting was over the chairs were ability. Having helped to nurse Ethel, and replaced and the audience meandered repeated printings. served Guy devotedly to the last, after Guy's upstairs where books were bought and fresh The aim was get their literature out to the death he also found himself looking after an arguments broke out amongst small groups. widest possible audience, and to help achieve increasingly cantankerous Jenny. She had The old man was tired... but he was loth to this the price of pamphlets was invariabley never warmed to John, and her formidable hurry them away. cut from 6d to 1d at the end of meetings. personality did not soften with her increasing Some, he knew, went home to misery and In the post-war period Aldred was a dependence on him. Nevertheless, he cared loneliness. The evening in the old cellar was candidate in a number of General Elections for her as he might have done for his own a rare feast of companionship for them. And and by-elections – not in the hope or mother. for the few young ones it was good too. Not expectation of being elected, but purely as a In fact John's importance derives from his just a case of agreeing with the old master, propaganda exercise, a cost-effective way "to incredible tenacity in keeping the movement but a challenge to read and, most important- expose the farcical and false nature of parlia- afloat and alive. At the time of the greatest ly, to think for themselves. mentarism," as John put it. activity of the antiparliamentary movement in Though only a very small group of In all of these, John acted as Aldred's the Thirties and Forties and on into the committed workers, through The Word in election agent, handling key aspects of the Fifties, John donated his savings and dole particular the USM had much influence in the campaigns from organising the nocturnal money to keep the movement going. 1940s, particularly in Scotland. squads of bill-posters and street-chalkers to It was largely his savings, in fact, that John remembered, for example, the booking meeting-halls to printing and enabled Ethel MacDonald and Jenny Patrick Burnbank miners selling some 600-900 delivering 10,000 handbills and election to finance their trip to Spain in 1936. copies each month. And Aldred's pamphlets addresses. Later, he even contributed the sold well, the most popular being his study of John never claimed to be much of a money he made as a writer of John Maclean, which sold 15,000 copies in speaker. He spoke at the USM Study Circle children's stories, for John was a 44 34 Obituary: John Taylor Caldwell

writer of no mean talent. Occasionally he would contribute an article for The Word, but he also wrote a series of Factfile: John Taylor children's stories for the Daily Mirror and The Comet. At one stage he was invited to join the staff Cauldwell (1911-2007) of Amalgamated Press but characteristically put his unpaid political work first. It was primarily John who from 1959 onwards kept “In the new society we will lay the Strickland Press going and got out The aside our armoury of "isms" and Word following Ethel's tragic illness and our perpetual belligerence. In a death. In Aldred's lifetime John invariably took a state of cooperation we will background role. After Aldred's death in find freedom to live much more October 1963, however, he stepped forward to fully than before.” keep the movement going. Virtually single-handedly he continued to publish The Word (later transmuted to The Word n An agitator since his teenage Quarterly). But the USM fell into decline, and years, Cauldwell found his political by 1968 John was forced to close its printing home on meeting Guy Aldred in press and bookshop. But perhaps of more long term significance 1934. were John's efforts in keeping alive the n He was both an untiring physi- movement's history and its ideas, of antipar- cal aide to Glasgow’s leading liamentarism and self-activity which were its organisers, and an important hallmarks. transatlantic link through his work I first met John, early in the Eighties, through Willie McDougall, another veteran of as a seaman Glasgow antiparliamentarism. Willie n His work was vital to the found- recommended that, if I wanted to find out ing of the Strickland Press movement which occupied him about the history of the movement, I should n Cauldwell was a talented writer n speak to John Caldwell. He continued speaking, helping For Willie the movement's history was of children’s books, but in his later researchers and supporting anar- secondary – far more important was his prop- years, it was the history of the chist causes well into his 90s. aganda work, especially the production of his many pamphlets and papers on current issues. John, on the other hand, whilst he of autobiography, Severely Dealt With (1993) state of health and declining abilities: not so course recognised the value of such activity, and With Fate Conspire (1999). The former, a John. He maintained a lively interest in realised that if the movement and its ideas vivid depiction of his harsh upbringing in political and social developments, and made were to survive in a period of downturn, Belfast and Glasgow, was well received and determined efforts, ultimately frustrated by recording its history as fully as possible was was a bestseller for three consecutive his increasing blindness, to master informa- vital. months at John Smith's historic bookshop tion technology so that he could continue to To this end, in books, articles, TV in central Glasgow (now also, alas, defunct). communicate with the outside world. programmes, plays and speaking wherever Most recently, about eighteen months Out of his modest income he subscribed to possible, he devoted the last decades of his before his death, John had made an anarchist and publications; and life. important contribution to a film about "The also contributed to a whole gamut of child Possibly it was from Aldred that he first Spanish Pimpernel", Ethel MacDonald. and animal welfare charities, a commitment appreciated the importance of this. Aldred In addition, John was always willing to rooted in his childhood experience of cruelty devoted pamphlet after pamphlet to rescuing speak at events in Glasgow, trying to bring and deprivation rather than easy heroes of the movement from oblivion, and in alive the history of the movement for a new sentimentality. the 1950s embarked on his major autobio- generation of anarchists and direct He took a humourous and completely graphical project, No Traitor's Gait, which, actionists. rational approach to his own mortality, doing although unfinished, remains one of the This he did well into his nineties, for exam- his best despite failing sight to put his papers major sources for the libertarian and ple speaking at Glasgow's John Maclean in order so that nothing of historical value freethought movement of the late nineteenth Centre three or four years ago. He was always would be lost – and pointing them out to us and early twentieth centuries. ready to assist fellow workers with their with words such as "When I kick the buck- To some this might smack of Aldred's ego- research, especially if it promised to "spread et..." centricity, placing himself at the centre of the the word" to new audiences and to shed new In accordance with the practices and values movement's early history. John's approach light on the movement to which he had his old comrades had always maintained, he was completely the opposite, downplaying devoted his life. willed his body to medical science. his own role to insignificance. Similarly, he was an assiduous correspon- Aldred's1961 tribute to Ethel MacDonald is Without being conscious of it he was in dent, answering queries with thoughtful and equally applicable to John: many ways an oral historian of the detailed accounts drawn from his capacious "...it seems rather odd that we should have movement: having absorbed comrades' memory and his notebooks and diaries. the desire to struggle forward and to change memories and stories, he had a remarkable However, emphasis on his lifetime of the world and to put it right. Yet for some ability to synthesise the information and service to the cause and on his self-effacing strange reason a contradiction arises within produce a compelling narrative in his lucid character runs the risk of creating a us. We do struggle, we do change the world. prose style. misleading impression of what it was like to One generation emerges into another. He devoted the rest of his long life to be in John's company. “The hopes of yesterday's heroes and "guarding the movement against oblivion", He was a witty and convivial man. A visit to martyrs become the inspiring slogans of the depositing archival material in libraries such his flat was always an occasion for lively martyrs and heroes of today, and by them are as the Mitchell Library and the libraries of conversation, laughter and (in a modest way) passed on to the heroes and martyrs that will Strathclyde and Glasgow Caledonian feasting. Until only a few years before his last be tomorrow... Universities, and editing a collection of illness, we would arrive at his flat to find the “I must be bold in mind and spirit so as to Aldred's works for World Microfilms. table neatly set out and his crowning play my part in bringing about the new world In addition, Luath Press published his culinary achievement, stewed steak with in which [John Caldwell] believed, and to cre- biography of Guy Aldred, Come Dungeons carrots and onions, filling the air with its ate which [he] toiled and struggled." Dark (1988) albeit in abbreviated form, and savoury aroma. subsequently Northern Herald Books In extreme old age some people become published his two important volumes of almost exclusively preoccupied with their By Bob Jones and Gina Bridgeland n How revolution lost its way Analysis: Remembering the Russian tragedy

HIS year marks the 90th exceptional circumstances facing the revolu- returned to their villages or dead on the anniversary of the Russian tion were the source of the deviations of battlefield. Revolution. While the Bolshevik Bolshevik policies from socialist ideas. “In purely quantitative terms, the class that T Myth appears to be on the decline, However, as Lenin himself acknowledged in had led the revolution, the class whose dem- some radicals are some infatuated with it and 1917, "revolution... in its development, would ocratic processes had constituted the living so, unfortunately, anarchists still need to give rise to exceptionally complicated core of Soviet power, was halved in impor- explain why Leninism lead to Stalinism. circumstances" and "revolution is the tance... An effective way of doing so is to contrast sharpest, most furious, desperate class war “What remained was not even half of that the claims of Leninists with reality. Chris and civil war. Not a single great revolution in class" as what was left was atomised. Thus Harman's "How the Revolution was Lost" is history has escaped civil war. No one who the "decimation of the working class" meant an attempt by the British SWP to explain the does not live in a shell could imagine that that "of necessity the Soviet institutions took rise of Stalinism while exonerating the civil war is conceivable without exceptionally on a life independently of the class they had (1) arisen from." politics of Bolshevism at the same time. complicated circumstances."(2) First published in 1967 to mark the 50th The major problem with this assertion is As such, it seems difficult to blame the anniversary of the revolution, this essay is simply that the Russian working class was inescapable resistance by the ruling class for still used by the party and contains all the more than capable of collective action the problems of a revolution. If it cannot basic themes they, and other Leninists, use throughout the Civil War period -- against the handle the inevitable, then Bolshevism is to defend the Bolsheviks. Therefore, it is Bolsheviks. clearly to be avoided. worth looking at in order to see how its In the Moscow area, while it is "impossible claims have survived recent research and to say what proportion of workers were whether the original assertions bear up to Got no class? involved in the various disturbances," analysis. following the lull after the defeat of Harman places the blame on the degenera- Harman sees the key as "the dislocation of the workers' conference tion of the revolution on the civil war and the the working class. It was reduced to 43% of movement in mid-1918 "each wave isolation of the revolution. In effect, the its former numbers. The others were of unrest was more powerful than 44 36 Analysis: The

the last, culminating in the mass movement Clearly it had and was capable of collective that the demands that workers made at the from late 1920." action and organisation – until it was end of 1920... represented a fundamental For example, at the end of June 1919, "a repressed by the Bolsheviks. This implies change in aspirations since 1917."(11) Moscow committee of defence (KOM) was that a key factor in rise of Stalinism was So while the " working class had decreased formed to deal with the rising tide of distur- political – the simple fact that the workers in size and changed in composition... the bances... KOM concentrated emergency would not vote Bolshevik in free soviet and protest movement from late 1920 made clear power in its hands, overriding the Moscow union elections and so they were not allowed that it was not a negligible force and that in Soviet, and demanding obedience from the to. an inchoate way it retained a vision of social- population. The disturbances died down As one Soviet historian put it, "taking the ism which was not identified entirely with under the pressure of repression." account of the mood of the workers, the Bolshevik power... In early 1921, "military units called in" demand for free elections to the soviets “Lenin's arguments on the declassing of against striking workers "refused to open (raised in early 1921) meant the implementa- the proletariat was more a way of avoiding fire, and they were replaced by the armed tion in practice of the infamous slogan of this unpleasant truth than a real reflection of communist detachments" who did. "The soviets without communists," although there what remained, in Moscow at least, a following day several factories went on is little evidence that the strikers actually substantial physical and ideological force."(12) strike" and troops "disarmed and locked in raised that ‘infamous’ slogan.(6) This explains why working class struggle as a precaution" by the government against It should also be noted that Bolshevik during this period generally fails to get men- possible fraternising. orthodoxy at the time stressed that, to quote tioned by the likes of the SWP. It simply On February 23rd, "Moscow was placed Lenin, that "the dictatorship of the proletari- undermines their justifications for Bolshevik dictatorship.

Divide and Rule?

Harman argues that "to keep alive" many workers "resorted to direct barter of their products – or even parts of their machines – with peasants for food. Not only was the lead- ing class of the revolution decimated, but the ties linking its members together were fast disintegrating." This seems ironic, for two reasons. Firstly, in 1918 Lenin had argued that "those who believe that socialism will be built at a time of peace and tranquillity are profoundly mistaken: it will everywhere be built at a time of disruption, at a time of famine."(13) Again, if Bolshevism becomes unstuck by the inevitable side effects of revolution, then it should be avoided.(14) Secondly, there is the issue of Bolshevik ideology. For example, Bolshevik policies banning trade helped undermine a collective response to the problems of exchange between city and country. For example, a DEADLY DESTINY: Stalin and Lenin in their younger days delegation of workers from the Main Workshops of the Nikolaev Railroad to under martial law with a 24-hour watch on at cannot be exercised through an organisa- Moscow reported to a well-attended meeting factories by the communist detachments and tion embracing the whole of the class... It can that "the government had rejected their trustworthy army units."(3) be exercised only by a vanguard."(7) Zinoviev request (to obtain permission to buy food Nor was this collective struggle limited to clarified what this meant: "the dictatorship of collectively) arguing that to permit the free Moscow. "Strike action remained endemic in the proletariat is at the same time the purchase of food would destroy its efforts to the first nine months of 1920" and "in the dictatorship of the Communist Party."(8) come to grips with hunger by establishing a first six months of 1920 strikes had occurred Harman presents a somewhat contradicto- 'food dictatorship.'"(15) in 77% of middle-sized and large works." ry account of the working class in this Bolshevik ideology replaced collective For the Petrograd province, soviet figures period, arguing that many workers fled, working class action with an abstract "collec- state that in 1919 there were 52 strikes with "returned to their villages" and that "raw tive" response via the state, which turned the 65,625 participants and in 1920 73 strikes peasants from the countryside, without workers into isolated and atomised individu- with 85,645, both high figures as according socialist traditions or aspirations, took their als.(16) to one set of figures, which are by no means place."(9) Other policies undermined working class the lowest, there were 109,100 workers Why would peasants come to the starving collectivity. For example, in early 1918 Lenin there. towns when workers were fleeing them? stated that "we must raise the question of In February and March 1921 "industrial Looking at the strike wave of early 1921, the piece-work and apply it... in practice."(17) As unrest broke out in a nation-wide wave of dis- strongest reason for accepting that it was Tony Cliff notes, "the employers have at their content... General strikes, or very widespread established workers who were behind it was disposal a number of effective methods of unrest, hit Petrograd, Moscow, Saratov and "the form and course of protest" which disrupting th(e) unity (of workers as a class). Ekaterinoslavl." Only one major industrial reached "back through the spring of 1917 Once of the most important of these is the region was unaffected. In response to the and beyond [and] were an important factor" fostering of competition between workers by general strike in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks in its organisation.(10) means of piece-work systems." He notes that replied with a "military clamp-down, mass Clearly, Harman's argument can be faulted. these were used by the Nazis and the arrests and other coercive measures, such as Nor is it particularly original, as it dates back Stalinists "for the same purpose."(18) the closure of enterprises, the purging of the to Lenin and was first formulated "to justify a Obviously piece-work has different conse- workforce and stopping of rations which political clamp-down" in response to rising quences when Lenin introduces it! accompanied them."(4) working class protest rather than its lack: Combine these with the turning of the Given this collective rebellion all across the "As discontent amongst workers became soviets and unions into rubber-stamps for industrial centres of Russia throughout the more and more difficult to ignore, Lenin... the Bolshevik party, the undermining of the Civil War and after, it’s hard to take Harman began to argue that the consciousness of the factory committees, the disbanding of solider seriously when he argues that the working working class had deteriorated... workers committees and the elimination of freedom of class had "ceased to exist in any meaningful had become 'declassed.'" assembly, press and organisation for work- sense."(4) However, there "is little evidence to suggest ers, little wonder the masses ceased to play a Analysis: The Russian Revolution 37

role in the revolution. nation of a leading Bolshevik. places in the factories." "The Bolsheviks responded by 'invading' The obvious question arises as to why From soviets to state the whole Nevskii district with troops and these workers and peasants could not shutting down Obukhov completely. "govern themselves collectively" while in the This process began before the civil war Meetings everywhere were forbidden." Faced Red Army. The answer is simple – the Harman blames for all the problems of with a general strike called for July 2nd, the Bolsheviks had eliminated soldier democracy Bolshevism in power; "until the Civil War was Bolsheviks set up "machine guns... at main in March 1918 (again, before the start of the well under way" the "democratic dialectic of points throughout the Petrograd and Moscow Civil War). In the words of Trotsky, "the prin- party and class could continue. The railroad junctions, and elsewhere in both ciple of election is politically purposeless Bolsheviks held power as the majority party cities as well. Controls were tightened in fac- and technically inexpedient, and it has been, (24) in the Soviets. But other parties continued to tories. Meetings were forcefully dispersed." in practice, abolished by decree."(27) exist there too. The Mensheviks continued to The early months of Bolshevik rule were An army with appointed commanders is operate legally and compete with the marked by "worker protests, which then hardly an environment for collective self- Bolsheviks for support until June 1918." precipitated violent repressions against government and so it is little wonder he does Given that the Civil War started on the 25th hostile workers. Such treatment further not mention this. of May and the Mensheviks were expelled intensified the disenchantment of significant Unsurprisingly, Samuel Farber notes that from the Soviets on the 14th of June, it is segments of Petrograd labour with Bolshevik- "there is no evidence indicating Lenin or any (25) clear that Harman is being less than honest dominated Soviet rule." of the mainstream Bolshevik leaders in his account. While Harman argues that "for all its faults, lamented the loss of workers' control or of Looking at Getzler's Martov (which Harman quotes to prove Bolshevik popularity in October 1917), we discover that "Menshevik newspapers and activists in the trade unions, the Soviets, and the factories had made a considerable impact on a working class which was becoming increasingly disillu- sioned with the Bolshevik regime, so much so that in many places the Bolsheviks felt constrained to dissolve Soviets or prevent re- elections where Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries had gained majorities."(19) The Bolsheviks expelled the Mensheviks in the context of political losers before the Civil War. As Getzler notes the Bolsheviks "drove them underground, just on the eve of the elections to the Fifth Congress of Soviets in which the Mensheviks were expected to make significant gains."(20) Recent research disproves Harman's claim and confirms Getzler. "The Bolsheviks’ soviet electoral hegemony began to signifi- cantly erode" by the spring of 1918 with "big gains by the SRs and particularly by the Mensheviks." In all the provincial capitals of European Russia where elections were held on which data exists, the Mensheviks and the SRs won majorities and "Bolshevik armed force usually overthrew the results" of these INFLUENTIAL: Leaders of the Menshevik Party at Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, Sweden, elections (as well as the resulting workers' May 1917. Pavel Axelrod, Julius Martov and Alexander Martinov protests).(21) it was precisely the Bolshevik party that had democracy in the soviets, or at least referred In Petrograd, in the elections of June 1918 alone whole-heartedly supported Soviet to these losses as a retreat, as Lenin declared the Bolsheviks "lost the absolute majority in power," the facts are that the Bolsheviks only with the replacement of War Communism by the soviet they had previously enjoyed" but supported "Soviet power" when the soviets NEP in 1921."(28) remained the largest party. However, the were Bolshevik.(26) results of these elections where irrelevant as a "Bolshevik victory was assured by the If the workers voted for others, "soviet Top-down democracy is no democracy numerically quite significant representation power" was quickly replaced by party power. now given to trade unions, district soviets, Harman is correct to state that "the Soviets Another problem was the Bolshevik vision of factory-shop committees, district workers that remained [by the end of the civil war] (centralised) democracy. Trotsky is typical. In conferences, and Red Army and naval units, were increasingly just a front for Bolshevik April 1918 he argued that the key factor in in which the Bolsheviks had overwhelming power" but this had been the situation before democracy was that the central power was strength."(22) Similar "packing" of soviets was its start, not after its end. elected by the masses, meaning that func- evident in the Moscow in early 1920.(23) As such, his assertion that "the Soviet tional democracy from below could be Rather than the Civil War disrupting the State of 1917 had been replaced by the replaced by decisions and appointments from "democratic dialectic of party and class," it single-party State of 1920 onwards" is simply above as the government was "better able to was in fact the Bolsheviks who did so in face unsupportable. The Bolsheviks had consoli- judge in the matter than" the masses. of rising working class dissent and disillu- dated their position in early 1918, turning the The sovereign people were expected to sionment in the spring of 1918. In fact, "after Soviet State into a de facto one party state by simply obey their public servants until such the initial weeks of 'triumph'... Bolshevik gerrymandering and disbanding of soviets time as they could "dismiss that government labour relations after October" changed and before the start of the Civil War. and appoint another." Trotsky raised the "soon lead to open conflict, repression, and Thus, when Harman that argues that "of question of whether it was possible for the the consolidation of Bolshevik dictatorship necessity the Soviet institutions took on a government to act "against the interests of over the proletariat in place of proletarian life independently of the class they had aris- the labouring and peasant masses?" dictatorship itself." en from," the "necessity" in question was not He answered no. Yet it is obvious that on June 20th the Obukhov works appealed the Civil War, but rather the necessity to Trotsky's claim that "there can be no antago- to the unofficial (Menshevik influenced) maintain Bolshevik power. nism between the government and the mass Conference of Factory and Plant Harman maintains that "those workers and of the workers, just as there is no Representatives to strike on June 25th peasants who fought the Civil War could not antagonism between the administra- against Bolshevik reprisals over the assassi- govern themselves collectively from their tion of the union and the general 44 38 Analysis: The Russian Revolution

assembly of its members" is nonsense.(29) of the party. Combine this with a vision of power placed into the hands of the nineteen The history of trade unionism is full of ‘democracy’ which is highly centralised and members of the Bolshevik party's central examples of committees betraying their which undermines local participation then committee was automatically no longer in membership. The subsequent history of we have the necessary foundations for the the hands of the working class. Lenin's government shows that there can be turning of party power into party As such, when Leninists argue that objec- "antagonism" between rulers and ruled and dictatorship. tive circumstances forced the Bolsheviks to that appointments are always a key way to And it must be stressed that in the substitute their power for that of the masses, further elite interests. Bolshevik ideal was that the party should anarchists reply that this substitution had This vision of top-down "democracy" can, seize power, not the working class as a occurred the movement the Bolsheviks of course, be traced back to Marx's whole. Lenin in 1917 continually repeating placed power in their own hands. arguments of 1850 and Lenin's comments the basic idea that the Bolsheviks "can and As a result, popular participation and that the "organisational principle of revolu- must take state power into their own institutions had to wither and die. Moreover, tionary Social-Democracy" was "to proceed hands."(31) once in power, the Bolsheviks were shaped from the top downward."(30) He equated party power with popular by their new position and the social relation- By equating centralised, top-down decision power and argued that Russia would be ships it created and, consequently, making by an elected government with governed by the Bolshevik party. But what implemented policies influenced and "democracy," the Bolsheviks had the ideolog- happens if the masses turn against the constrained by the hierarchical and centralised structures they had created. ical justification to eliminate the functional party? The destruction of soviet democracy This was not the only negative impact of democracy associated with the soviets, facto- in the spring and summer of 1918 answers Bolshevik centralism. It also spawned a ry committees and soldiers committees. that question. In a clash between soviet bureaucracy. Instead of the state starting to The Bolshevik vision of democracy became democracy and party power, the Bolsheviks wither away "a new bureaucratic and cen- the means by which real democracy was consistently favoured the latter – as would be tralised system emerged with extraordinary eliminated in area after area of Russian expected given their ideology and so it is not a great step to party dictatorship given the rapidity... As the functions of the state working class life. Needless to say, a state (33) premises of Bolshevism. expanded so did the bureaucracy." which eliminates functional democracy in This was a striking confirmation of the the grassroots will not stay democratic in any anarchist analysis, which argues that a new meaningful sense for long. Centralisation empowers the few, not bureaucratic class develops around the Nor does it come as too great a surprise to the many centralised bodies. This body would soon discover that a government which considers become riddled with personal influences and itself as "better able to judge" things than the Long before the revolution, Lenin had argued favours, so ensuring that members could be people finally decides to annul any election that within the party it was a case of "the sheltered from popular control while, at the results it dislikes. This perspective is at the transformation of the power of ideas into the same time, exploiting its power to feather its heart of vanguardism, for in Bolshevik ideol- power of authority, the subordination of own nest. ogy the party, not the class, is in the final lower Party bodies to higher ones."(32) analysis the repository of class conscious- Such visions of centralised organisation n This is part one of a two-part series. The ness. were the model for the revolutionary state. conclusion will appear in the next issue of This means that once in power it has a Yet by its very nature centralism places Black Flag. built-in tendency to override the decisions of power into a few hands and effectively elimi- the masses it claimed to represent and nates the popular participation required for justify this in terms of the advanced position any successful revolution to develop. The By Iain McKay n

NOTES: 10. It should be noted that the Russian revolution 22-4 confirmed Kropotkin's argument that any revolution 19. Alexander Rabinowitch, "The Evolution of Local would see economic disruption and dislocation (see Soviets in Petrograd", pp. 20-37, Slavic Review, Vol. 1. Chris Harman, "Russia - How the Revolution was Conquest of Bread and Act for Yourselves). Leading 36, No. 1, p. 36f Lost," first published in International Socialism 30, Bolsheviks like Lenin, Trotsky and Bukharin came to 20. Sakwa, p. 177 Autumn 1967 and subsequently reprinted as a pam- realise this decades later and, unlike their followers, 21. William Rosenberg, "Russian labour and phlet and included in Russia: From Workers' State to saw it as a "law" of revolutions. Bolshevik Power," pp. 98-131, The Workers' revolu- . 11. David Mandel, The Petrograd Workers and the tion in Russia, 1917, Daniel H. Kaiser (ed.), 2. Lenin, Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power? Soviet Seizure of Power: from the July days 1917 to (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987), p. (Sutton Publishing Ltd, Stroud, 1997), p. 80, p. 81 July 1918 (MacMillan, London, 1984), p. 392 117, pp. 126-7 and p. 127 Richard Sakwa, Soviet Communists in Power: a 12. such, the Bolsheviks provided a good example to 22. Alexander Rabinowitch, "Early Disenchantment study of Moscow during the Civil War, 1918-21 support Malatesta's argument that "if... one means with Bolshevik Rule: New Data form the Archives of (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1987), p. 94, pp. 94-5, p. government action when one talks of social action, the Extraordinary Assembly of Delegates from 245 then this is still the resultant of individual forces, but Petrograd Factories", Politics and Society under the 3. J. Aves, Workers Against Lenin: Labour Protest only of those individuals who form the govern- Bolsheviks, Dermott, Kevin and Morison, John (eds.) and the Bolshevik Dictatorship (Tauris Academic ment... it follows... that far from resulting in an (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1999), p. 37 Studies, London, 1996), p. 69, p. 109, p. 120 increase in the productive, organising and protective 23. As recognised by Martov, who argued that the The fact that the Russian working class was capable forces in society, it would greatly reduce them, limit- Bolsheviks loved Soviets only when they were "in of collective action was known in 1967. For example, ing initiative to a few, and giving them the right to the hands of the Bolshevik party." [Getzler, p. 174] Ida Mett: "And if the proletariat was that exhausted do everything without, of course, being able to pro- 24. quoted by Brintin, The Bolsheviks and Workers' how come it was still capable of waging virtually vide them with the gift of being all-knowing." Control 1917 to 1921: the State and Counter- total general strikes in the largest and most heavily [Anarchy (Freedom Press, London, 1974), pp. 36-7] Revolution, (Solidarity and Black and Red, London industrialised cities?" [Ida Mett, The Kronstadt Can it be surprising, then, that Bolshevik policies and Detroit, 1975), pp. 37-8. Rebellion (Solidarity, London, date unknown), p. 81] aided the atomisation of the working class by 25. Farber, p. 44 As such, ideological reasons explain Harman's asser- replacing collective organisation and action by state 26. Leon Trotsky Speaks (Pathfinder, New York, tions. bureaucracy? 1972), p. 113 4. quoted by Aves, p. 123 13. The Immediate Tasks Of The Soviet Government 27. For those, like the SWP, who maintain that Lenin stressed that this formula was applicable "in (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970), p. 23 Leninism is "socialism from below" Lenin explicitly all capitalist countries" as "the proletariat is still so 14. State Capitalism in Russia (Bookmarks, London, denied this: "Bureaucracy versus democracy is in fact divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts." 1988), pp. 18-9 centralism versus ; it is the organisation- [Collected Works, vol. 32, p. 21] 16. Israel Getzler, Martov: A Political Biography of a al principle of revolutionary Social-Democracy as Proceedings and Documents of the Second Russian Social Democrat (Melbourne University Press, opposed to the organisational principle of oppor- Congress 1920 (Pathfinder, New York, 1991), vol. 1, p. Carlton, 1967), p. 179 tunist Social-Democracy. The latter strives to proceed 152 17. While the Bolsheviks "offered some formidable from the bottom upward, and, therefore, wherever 5. Ironically, the Mensheviks blamed the rise of fictions to justify the expulsions" there was "of possible... upholds autonomism and 'democracy,' Bolshevik popularity before the war and in 1917 pre- course no substance in the charge that the carried (by the overzealous) to the point of anar- cisely on its appeal to the "new proletariat," i.e. Mensheviks had been mixed in counter-revolution- chism. The former strives to proceed from the top those new to the cities and still tied to its village ori- ary activities on the Don, in the Urals, in Siberia, downward." [Collected Works, vol. 7, pp. 396-7] gin. with the Czechoslovaks, or that they had joined the 28. Selected Works, vol. 2, p. 329 6. Aves, p. 126 worst Black Hundreds." [Israel Getzler, Martov, p. 29. Collected Works, vol. 7, p. 367 7. Aves, p. 18, p. 90 and p. 91. 181] 30. Richard Sakwa, "The Commune State in Moscow 8. Sakwa, p. 261 18. Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism: The Rise and Fall in 1918," pp. 429-449, Slavic Review, vol. 46, no. 3/4, 9. Lenin, Collected Works, vol.27 p. 517 of Soviet Democracy (Polity Press, Oxford, 1990), pp. pp. 437-8 Analysis: The Russian Revolution 39

LONG JOURNEY: Clockwise from above, A mass demonstration in the early days of the revolt against the Tsar,’s rule, the Kronstadt sailors march with the masses to protest against the Republic which replaced him, crowds scatter when the government orders soldiers to open fire on the demostrators, a mass demonstration, and members of the Cheka – Lenin’s secret police – search suspected dissidents. Photographs: Archive footage In colour: The Russian revolution The BIG PICTURE: Bakunin in colour

Patriotism imposes injustice and cruelty on all its subjects, as a supreme duty. It restrains, it mutilates, it kills humanity “ in them, so that, ceasing to be men, they are no longer anything but citizens. – ”