22.08.2001

Anarchists against Leninism

Iain McKay responds to our coverage of events in Italy

As is to be expected, the Weekly Worker used the events in Genoa as yet another opportunity to attack anarchism and anarchists. Sadly for them, the various articles in issue present not only a distorted account of anarchism, but also of what anarchists did at Genoa.

The basic flaw in their argument and analysis is simple. They equate the black bloc with all anarchists. Indeed, such inaccuracy is to be expected as they also equate Ya Basta with anarchism even though they are not anarchists. But facts are clearly the last thing the Weekly Worker cares about.

For example, Sarah McDonald stated that ?the anarchists did not want to march with anyone?, so ignoring the majority of anarchists who did march with others. Take, for example, the fact that in Genoa numerous anarchist organisations (such as the Italian FAI and FdCA, the French AL and others) were in the mass demonstration called by base-unions on general strike (CUB, RdB, SLAI-COBAS). Why did McDonald not mention this little fact?

Tina Becker, not to be outdone, states that the anarchists ?did not attend the migrant workers? demonstration on Thursday, where 30,000 people demanded open borders and an end to immigration controls. Far too political for our anarchists.? Sadly for her, the BBC news showed a large number of anarchists on that demonstration carrying red and black flags. But why let the facts get in the way?

Mark Fischer in his ?Black bloc?s history? tries to link it with the activities of the non-anarchist (indeed, anti-anarchist) ideas and activities of the followers of Auguste Blanqui. If he actually bothered to investigate the real history of the black bloc tactic, he would have discovered it in the decidedly Marxist (and non-anarchist) German autonomists in the 1980s. The tactic was applied by some north American anarchists in Seattle and elsewhere, but in Europe the Marxist autonomists use it as well. Does this mean we can generalise about Marxists as the Weekly Worker generalises about anarchists? Of course not.

These examples indicate the general level of the Weekly Worker?s account of anarchism in Genoa. They basically label anyone they dislike as ?anarchists?, equate anarchism with the black bloc tactic and write out of history those anarchists (the majority) who do not meet their stereotypes.

Their political analysis is as flawed as their factual reporting.

Democracy the answer?

For the CPGB, the answer for the anti-globalisation movement is ?democracy?. They constantly stress this in their ?critique? of anarchism (or at least what they think anarchism is). As they put it, ?This lack of democracy is not something to celebrate - it points to the inherent arrogance of the anarchist movement and the reality of its position outside the organised working class - the revolutionary force which will conquer a new society and truly liberate humanity.?

Funnily enough, Tony Blair and the other G8 leaders also made a big deal that they were democratically elected. Does this mean that the leaders of the capitalist world are ?inside? the ?organised working class?? Simply put, supporting ?democracy? does not place you inside or outside of the ?organised working class?. After all, many trade unions and ?socialist? political parties are run bureaucratically from the top down with purely formal levels of democracy. Are they an example to follow?

Clearly, ?democracy? is not enough. In the class struggle the working class creates new forms of organisation which are based on ideas which bourgeois democracy shuns. These are mass meetings, mandated and recallable delegates, federalism and so on. As Bakunin argued in the 1860s, ?the federative alliance of all working men?s associations ? [will] constitute the commune ? [the] communal council [will be] composed of ... delegates ... vested with plenary but accountable and removable mandates ... all provinces, communes and associations ... by first reorganising on revolutionary lines ... [will] constitute the federation of insurgent associations, communes and provinces ... [and] organise a revolutionary force capable of defeating reaction ... [and for] self-defence ... [The] revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme control must always belong to the people organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations ... organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegation ...?

This is a form of organisation that creates an alternative to bourgeois ?democracy? - namely self-management. This is the active participation of working people from below upwards. The Weekly Worker fails to mention that anarchists support self-management (direct democracy). That was why the majority of anarchists in Genoa took part in the COBAS march. Self-managed workers? organisations, run from the bottom, are a key aspect of anarchism. Sadly, the CPGB does not bother to inform the reader of the real anarchist position nor how working class self-organisation cannot be reduced to a very non-specific term as ?democracy.? After all, Blair and company argued that they represented ?democracy?.

Perhaps we can see what the Weekly Worker means by ?democracy? from Tina Becker?s article. She notes that a Daily Telegraph reporter ?claims he was easily integrated into the core group which organised the riots?, the UK-based Wombles. She then argues that ?with their undemocratic and sect-like organisational structure anarchists can easily be infiltrated and manipulated.?

This seems a strange argument, given the organisational structure of the Wombles. Let us quote the Wombles? press release on this event: ?The Wombles are an open network. We do not have a membership and all meetings are publicly advertised ... People are Wombles if they take part in the civil disobedience actions and can become part of the organising of them at public meetings. This also allows journalists like ?Tom? Thomas Harding (who most of us thought was an OK person) to be part of it. We do not have anything to hide and are open about our intentions on demonstrations and how we are going to react to police attacks.?

Now, how is this ?undemocratic?? Indeed, the reverse is the case. It is ultra-democratic (ie, self-management). How is this sort of ?infiltration? to be overcome? Only by eliminating face-to-face democracy in favour of hierarchical top-down leadership by a few. Perhaps this explains why they did not quote from this press release? Nor explain the actual organisational structure of the Wombles? After all, how can such a structure be ?undemocratic?? And if this is ?undemocratic? then what of a strikers? assembly or democratically mandated and accountable delegates to a workers? council? If these are ?undemocratic? then what is democracy? Party dictatorship?

Clearly, then, for the Weekly Worker direct democracy, elected, mandated and recallable delegates, workers? councils, control from the bottom up are all ?undemocratic?. Perhaps this explains why these fundamental ideas of anarchism are not mentioned in their paper when they discuss anarchism - such facts would confuse the reader and so are better left unmentioned. And, equally as dangerous, lead their readers to question the Bolshevik tradition and practice. A topic we now turn to.

Bolshevism and democracy

As for the Bolshevik tradition that the CPGB places itself in, well, that is hardly democratic (even in the limited sense that Blair and company meant). Tony Blair was not the first leader of an ?organised working class? party to be elected into power with 25% of the vote. The Bolsheviks received a similar share in the elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly in November 1917. Faced with an overwhelming vote against them, the Bolsheviks rejected democracy and disbanded the assembly. True democracy in action.

It will be argued that they disbanded the Constituent Assembly because the soviets represented a ?higher? form of democracy. So what of soviet democracy? The spring of 1918 saw the success of Menshevik-SR opposition in soviet elections in all provincial capitals in European Russia. The Bolshevik then disbanded the opposition-controlled soviets and repressed the subsequent wave of working class protests and revolts. To stay in power, the Bolsheviks had to destroy the soviets. These steps generated a far-reaching transformation in the soviet system, which remained ?soviet? in name only. Faced with an overwhelming vote against them, the Bolsheviks rejected democracy and disbanded the soviets. True democracy in action.

Similarly, the Bolsheviks also eliminated democracy in the armed forces as well as in industry. The soldiers? committees and elected officers were abolished in March 1918 by Trotsky: ?The principle of election is politically purposeless and technically inexpedient, and it has been, in practice, abolished by decree.? Officers were appointed from above by the government. In the workplace, Lenin argued against workers? self-management of production, supporting (appointed from above) ?one-man management? invested with ?dictatorial powers? in early 1918. By 1920, Trotsky was advocating the ?militarisation of labour? and implemented his ideas on the railway workers.

Clearly, Bolshevism is hardly democratic. The Weekly Worker interviewed Guiseppe de Cristofaro, secretary of the Young Communists, the youth section of Rifondazione Comunista. In reply to the question, ?Do you think the black bloc could be integrated into the protests??, he replied: ?Never. They have no politics, they are not interested in democratic organisation and they are full of police infiltrators. They are a danger to our movement.? We wonder why he and the Weekly Worker do not apply these criteria to their own political tradition. The Bolsheviks were also full of police infiltrators. Lenin, for example, noted that ?in 1912, when an agent provocateur, Malinovsky got into the central committee of the Bolsheviks? and ?betrayed scores and scores of the best and most local comrades?. Neither, as indicated above, were they interested in democratic organisation. As for having ?no politics?, well, that is obviously nonsense with regard to the genuine activists who use the black bloc tactic.

To state that the ideological followers of Bolshevism are also a danger to our movement would, I am sure, be labelled as ?sectarian? by the likes of the CPGB - yet that will not stop them urging that anarchists be purged from the movement (in the words of Tina Becker, ?we must also protect our movement from the enemy within? - ironically using the same words as that great democrat Thatcher did with regard to the striking miners in the 1980s).

G8 or central committee?

Ironically, they quote Carlo Giuliani?s father, who argued that ?Carlo didn?t accept the notion that eight leaders of the world should decide the life and death of hundreds of thousands of people.? Very true. Let us see if the Bolshevik method of organising is an improvement. Looking at Lenin?s Leftwing communism, we discover the following comments: ?The Party, which holds annual congresses ..., is directed by a central committee of 19 elected at the congress ... Not a single important political decision is decided by any state institution in our republic without the guiding instructions of the central committee of the Party ...?

As such, the difference is clear. Under Bolshevism, 19 people made life and death decisions for millions. Under capitalism, eight people make them. A massive improvement in terms of democracy, I am sure all would agree.

Lenin?s comments were made in regard to the discussion going on in the international revolutionary movement. A left wing had developed which argued for a self-managed revolution from below and which rejected the idea of party power or dictatorship in favour of mass working class organisation and direct action. Lenin opposed this and stressed that ?all talk about ?from above? or ?from below?, about ?the dictatorship of leaders? or ?the dictatorship of the masses?, cannot appear but ridiculous nonsense?; and ?the very presentation of the question - ?dictatorship of the Party? or ?dictatorship of the class?, ?dictatorship (Party) of the leaders? or ?dictatorship (Party) of the masses?? - is evidence of the most incredible and hopeless confusion of mind.? Needless to say, the only confusion of mind was with Lenin, who could not see that a handful of leaders being in power did not equal the working class running society.

Clearly, then, Bolshevism is hardly democratic. As Lenin argued (again in 1920), ?the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts ... that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard ... for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation.?

Why repeat the mistakes of the past? Why embrace a set of politics which confuses party power and class power? Luckily, few are - and so the distorted and inaccurate diatribes against anarchism by the representatives of the dying tradition of Bolshevism (not only the CPGB, we must stress, but also the likes of the UK?s SWP).

Nothing changes?

Perhaps it will be argued that the past is the past. Today, the followers of Lenin and Trotsky have mended their ways and are real democrats. Obviously this means ignoring a considerable slice of Bolshevik ideology and practice (Trotsky and Lenin, for example, both argued for party dictatorship until their deaths). It also means rejecting what they considered as a key lesson of the Russian Revolution. But never mind, let us see if Bolshevism has changed.

According to the Weekly Worker, ?The black bloc shunned the democracy of Genoa. Acting on their own agenda, they refused throughout to organise with other political and social centres in order to unite our efforts.?

As noted above, this comment ignores the majority of anarchists who did take part in the COBAS demonstrations. Written out of history, like so many before them, it is useful to recall this little fact and save it from the Memory Hole. However, the key issue is that the black bloc (which only a minority of anarchists took part in) ?shunned democracy? and ?act[ed] on their own agenda?. This, of course, has happened before at anti-globalisation demos. In Prague a political tendency also shunned democracy and acted on their own efforts. Who was it? Let us quote the post-Prague issue of the Weekly Worker:

?Farcically, the organisers had decided to split the march into three, each with its own route and composition - blue (anarchist), pink (trade unions and left organisations) and yellow (NGOs and Jubilee 2000) ...

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

Clearly agreeing with this decision to act independently of the agreed plan, the CPGB expose themselves as hypocrites. The difference between what they did and supported in Prague and the actions of the black bloc in Genoa is narrow, but important. It is that the CPGB approved of it in Prague. As such, the Weekly Worker shows that Bolshevism has not changed - undemocratic actions are acceptable as long as it?s the Bolsheviks who are doing it.

Subordination or free agreement?

Lastly, Andy Hannah argues that as long as anarchists ?remain separate from the class, and refuse to be subordinated to it politically and democratically, their impact will be entirely negative?. What does it mean to ?subordinate? yourself ?democratically? to ?the [working] class?? Does it mean having a referendum of the whole working class every time you try to make a decision? What if ?the class? decides that all anti-capitalist protestors should be shot? Or does it mean that we ?subordinate? ourselves to the decisions of the majority of protestors? Does that mean holding a referendum of all protestors? Or does he mean a majority of the groups organising a demonstration? As Prague showed, the CPGB will happily ignore any such decision if it feels like it. Ultimately, Hannah?s comments mean very little in practice.

Anarchists, being (in general) working class people, are part of the class struggle and try to influence it. We do not, however, think that working with our fellow workers in our common struggles mean we ?subordinate? ourselves. Quite the reverse, it means we cooperate with them. This means that we also discuss our ideas and try and convince others of their validity. That was why the likes of the Italian Anarchist Federation and other anarchist groups were in the COBAS march. Street fighting is far more noticeable than the slow, unexciting work of convincing our friends, neighbours and workmates that anarchism is something they should consider and apply in their struggles and class organisations. But that is what most anarchists do and what most anarchists did in Genoa. They concentrated their efforts in the militant mass unions of the COBAS, which apply many anarchist ideas successfully in their struggles - but that does not get into the media - be it capitalist or so-called ?communist?. It is sad I have to note this, but the Weekly Worker is not the only ?revolutionary? paper to ignore this aspect of anarchism in Italy (and across the world). A distortion may make good polemic, but you only defeat straw men arguments of your own invention.

Anarchists argue for free agreement between equals. We do not ?subordinate? ourselves to others, but will work with them. This means self-management within the anti-globalisation and labour movements, not hierarchy. As such, Hannah?s vision of ?subordination? gives the game away - we must, in good Leninist style, ?subordinate? ourselves to a ?democratically? elected leadership who make decisions for us. The same old division between leaders and led continues, except the new bosses claim to be ?radical? and ?revolutionary?. Let us not forget Lenin?s argument that the dictatorship of the leaders was the same as the dictatorship of the masses. Hardly a vision to inspire the struggle for a new society.

Little wonder more and more people are embracing anarchism - and why the likes of the Weekly Worker go to such lengths to distort the ideas of anarchism.