US capitalist-press political cartoons oppose anarchism (left) and communism (right).
by Tom Michalak
As the social contradictions between the exploited and the exploiters become more acute as a result of the capitalist economic crisis, coupled with the undermining of the system’s foundations due to the technological revolution, resistance is beginning to spring up around the world. The spoils of US imperialism that the privileged, white section of the US working class had previously benefited from have been deteriorating over the past few decades, and with it the barriers between privileged and non-privileged US workers. Conditions for the majority of the world continue to worsen. Those bearing the brunt of this global crisis have begun to seek out ideas that correspond to actual existing material conditions, leading them to more radical forms of social organization. Work becomes harder to come by, wages continue to diminish, and getting enough to eat becomes more difficult for an ever increasing amount of people. Resistance becomes a matter of life or death. The abolition of capital becomes the obvious answer as long as the ceaseless bloodletting that the capitalist class demands makes it clear to the workers that their interests are irreconcilable and that socialism must be fought for and won.
The three dominant trends in progressive thought are social democracy, anarchism, and Marxism (also known as “scientific socialism”). The latter two advocate for a removal of the exploiting class by force. Social democrats believe that socialism is something that can simply be won in a ballot box. To them, after each election of socialist candidates to hold public office in the bourgeois state pursuing policies on behalf of the working class, we move one step closer to workers controlling the means of production. In practice, this electoral road to socialism has ended up betraying the working class. For instance, in the UK, the so-called Labour Party held control of the government for decades, and are not one step closer to building a world in which human need is a priority over the interests of the wealthy few. Anarchists and Marxists differ from the social democrats in that they both envision a society free from exploitation, the state, borders, as well as any/all forms of oppression and the first step in achieving this goal is through social revolution against capital. This, however, is where similarities between Anarchism and Marxism end.
Although these ideologies and their followers can share a similar vision of what the world will look like after it has completely thrown off the bonds of capitalism but beyond the very basic, general characterization of the Marxist concept of communism and anarchy, it is clear how vast the practical differences truly are.
Most importantly, the methods with which anarchists and Marxists analyze existence are contrary from one another. Marxists adopt a scientific analysis to all aspects of the workings of the universe, which is a useful tool in examing class societies throughout history since the advent of agriculture and exploiting classes. Capitalism, just as all economic structures (communal, slave, feudal, and eventually communist), came into existence based what particular class is gaining strength and which is diminishing, which is determined by the existing means of production and how they develop. Here is Karl Marx’s description of this social process:
“At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations. . . . Then begins an epoch of social revolution. But no social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed . . .”
When capitalism arose from feudalism, it emerged out of a class struggle between the growing capitalist class and the fading feudal land owning class. The capitalist means of organizing labor began to develop and gain strength due to inherent superiority over feudalism (superiority in the sense that it is a more efficient, dynamic, and productive means of producing surplus than the aging, outdated feudal economy). Throughout all of history, when one class overthrows another, it is because of inherent class contradictions within society that can no longer be suppressed, and a long bloody struggle for victory ensues. This method of analyzing human development is called historical materialism and it is what leads Marxists to a scientific, objective conclusion that the expropriation of the expropriators by the oppressed will happen as a yet another stage in history.
All socialists see capitalism as something that is unjust and which must be defeated for the good of all people, but for the anarchists, that is as far as their reasoning on the subject is willing to go. The anarchist approach to building an ideal society is as something to be simply created on sheer will of their sense of “justice” as well as any other human ideas, institutions, etc., unbeknownst to them, are all rooted to their relationships in the particular class structure in which they exist. This is precisely why Marx once said “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.” When examined dialectically, it becomes clear that all things in existence, especially human ideas, are subject to change based on material realities. The anarchist’s sense of justice is not rooted in proletarian ideology, but is petit-bourgeois in nature. For one to be a revolutionary and not have a basic understanding of how change occurs, without a dialectical materialist understanding of society, then making a revolution to emancipate the world’s oppressed becomes a much larger and heavier task, if not a completely impossible one altogether.
In the past, there have been great attempts to construct socialism, initiated first by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the socialist tide would eventually sweep 1/3 of the world’s population ranging from all over the world to China, Angola, Cuba, and many other nations in between into resistance against capitalist exploitation. Despite all of the monumental setbacks and constant threat of imperialist invasion/sabotage, some of these nations still exist on a basis of socialized property, providing much happier and more fulfilling lives than capitalist exploitation could ever provide. What they all have in common is that they have all been founded on a Marxist understanding of history and class struggle and have therefore survived as long as they have, severe hardships notwithstanding. That is more than you can say for any anarchist attempt at creating revolution anywhere. This is not to say that you can judge an economic system by how many years it lasts, but anarchism has proven itself to not even be remotely capable of even coming close to abolishing political and economic anywhere they have attempted to do so. A major contributing factor to this is their rejection to the concept of a working class “vanguard”- the professional revolutionaries made up of the most advanced sections of the working class, to lead the workers to ultimate victory and guide them in their fight against the capitalists class and to the abolition of class altogether.
As a whole, anarchism has proven time and time again to be incapable of building a mass movement anywhere they make their presence. This stems from there complete detachment from the working class as a whole and their inability to influence or learn from the masses. They are often described by many on the radical left of being “ultra-left,” which, interestingly enough, some are known to wear that title with pride, as if working class ideology is a contest to see who can be the most left wing. They are “leaps and bounds ahead” of the working class as a whole and as a result isolate themselves from the masses. Marxist revolutionaries attempt to lead the workers towards revolution by staying just one step ahead politically of the masses, not to lag behind or to jump far beyond their understanding, but by playing a vanguard role.
Aside from the anarchists’ lack of ability to lead the masses to a successful socialist revolution (as well as their ideological unwillingness to “lead” anything), the scope through which they see revolution as an actual possibility is completely counter to the Marxist conception. To the Marxist, the masses are the driving force of social change. Revolutionary change will happen through the will of the masses as a whole. For the anarchist, it is the contrary. Their emphasis rests entirely on the individual’s liberation. But then the question then arises: is any individual person’s liberation possible while there are those still in bondage? The answer is no, for until all of humanity frees itself from its shackles, all are still bound to them. This is perhaps the chief reason why it can be argued that anarchists are not genuinely revolutionaries.
Given the generations of anti-communist propaganda flowing through all channels of social life, the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc, it is easy to see why today there are such large swaths of anarchists, denouncing communists as “authoritarian”, pronouncing that Marxism has showed itself to be a lifeless dogma that only leads to so-called “state capitalism”. However, I do not think that this spells the doom for authentic scientific socialism. Both the anarchist and communist movements are seeing a rapid growth on a world wide scale, being complimented by the increasing strength of the right-wing movement. The growth of these movements are expressions of the material conditions of global capitalist crisis, and as the ever ripening conditions for communism grow, they will show the workers, even those who are not yet convinced of its necessity, that there is no other avenue of struggle that can actually bring the defeat of fascist gangs, exploitation, and imperialist destruction of lives. Workers’ power exercising its will against the capitalist class will show itself to be an inevitability. All transitions of the past of one class rule to another have come as a result of bitter struggle and bloodshed and has been a process. The capitalists who hold power now have not always been in the position they are in now, as it was a result of class struggle. The difference today, is that the feudal lords did not have a gun pointed at the world’s head, as the capitalists do today in the form of thousands of nuclear weapons that could in an instance make the world inhabitable for humans altogether. The only thing capable of ending capitalist dominion is an organized army of the revolutionary army of the globally oppressed, and this is only achievable as Marxist theory as a guide to victory.
