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libertarian socialism and authoritarian socialism |
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| Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Organisation (SWO), recently featured an "exposé" of anarchism entitled "Marxism and Anarchism" (Socialist Worker, December 4, 2000). The article is attributed to Kevin Ovenden, but is in fact an edited version of a diatribe which originally appeared in the British Socialist Worker (published by the SWO's sister organisation, the Socialist Workers Party). The article sets out to prove that by rejecting authority, centralism, unity and leadership, anarchism is unable to provide what the working class needs in order to overthrow capitalism, that is, "a clear and determined revolutionary party". This is done by using a series of historical examples, most of which are in fact distortions of actual events. These distortions are addressed in a lengthy response to the original article which can be found on the Internet at http://www.infoshop.org/texts/swp.html (send us some stamps if you'd like a printed version).
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CONTENTS
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The article begins by rather simplistically defining anarchism as "a rejection of all authority". Although many anarchists would not have a problem with such a definition, it is open to misinterpretation as a complete rejection of any rules or order. The author adds to the confusion by suggesting that authority, centralisation and unity are the same thing. "For anarchists, any form of centralisation or leadership is a type of authority, which is oppressive. But it is impossible to build a strong and effective campaign if, after people have come together to plan action, individuals then go off and do something different. We always need to take the best ideas and act on them in a united way." The suggestion here seems to be that coordination and unity can only be achieved through centralisation, that is, through the concentration of power in the hands of a minority. Anarchists reject the centralisation of power because it takes power away from the people at the base. Instead they propose decentralised or federal structures, in which individuals or delegates from autonomous groups come together to coordinate activities while ensuring that ultimate power remains at the grassroots level. Anarchists have worked using these methods for over 150 years, making and implementing agreements and coordinating activities without any central body or leadership. To claim that anarchists have a problem with sticking to agreements that have been formed as the result of a truly democratic process is ridiculous.
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The author then goes on to suggest that "democratic workers' organisations" such as workers councils are examples of "authoritarian" alternatives to the capitalist state. "Militant mass strikes throw up an alternative form of authority to the capitalist state. Many times over the last 150 years, democratic bodies, like strike committees or workers councils, have taken over organising 'state functions' - running transport, food distribution, defence of picket lines and workers' areas from the police and army and so on. Socialists argue that these democratic workers' organisations need to take power from the capitalists and break up their state. This happened in Russia in October 1917 in a revolution led by the Bolshevik Party." Anarchists agree that workers should take power from the capitalists and break up their state. This is why most anarchists (who traditionally view anarchism as a type of socialism) have always supported the formation of the kinds of democratic bodies mentioned above. The difference between anarchists and authoritarian socialists like the SWO is that while anarchists believe these bodies can organise a revolution and run society by themselves, authoritarian socialists believe these bodies need to be led by a centralised, hierarchical party, which usually means replacing the capitalist state with an equally authoritarian "workers state", controlled not by workers but by party bureaucrats. This is actually what happened in Russia in 1917. In February 1917, the Tsar was overthrown after a series of strikes and confrontations that took the Bolshevik Party by surprise. Workers held meetings and began spontaneously forming soviets, or workers councils, to coordinate the struggle of the factories on strike. These were exactly the kinds of "democratic workers organisations" the SWO purportedly supports, yet far from leading this revolution, the Bolshevik Party actually opposed it! By February 24, half of Petrograd was on strike. But the local Bolsheviks told the strikers to go back to work. Luckily for the Russian workers, and unfortunately for the Tsar, the Bolsheviks were ignored. The Bolshevik Party, a minority organisation, eventually took power in a coup in October 1917, and soon set about taking control away from the workers' organisations. Although they were to govern in the name of the soviets, in fact the Bolsheviks had no faith in the ability of workers to run the factories on their own.
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Self-managed factory committees were replaced with appointed, autocratic managers, and democratically elected trade union leaders were replaced with loyal followers of Lenin and Trotsky. The workers councils became little more than rubber-stamps for the Bolshevik government. Real power rested with the central government, just as it had before the revolution. All the October revolution managed to do was replace one group of leaders with another, halting the revolution in its tracks. The author asserts that the SWO is "democratic because its members constantly debate what is happening in today's struggles and the lessons that can be applied from past ones". Yet this is an organisation that would have us repeat the mistakes of the Russian Revolution, only with the SWO taking on the role of the Bolsheviks.
Anarchists, on the other hand, were quick to learn the real lesson from the Russian Revolution: that true democracy can only exist when everyone, not just a tiny elite at the top, has control over how society is run.
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Despite these distortions, however, the Socialist Worker article does highlight some key differences between the approaches of authoritarian and libertarian socialists.