Politics/ Philosophy: Anarchism

 Anarchism means literally, “No government”. Anarchists agree with the list assessment of human equality and rights proposed by liberals and socialists, but regarded all governments and all attempts to govern as fundamentally wrong. They believe that the state is always by its nature oppressive, distorting social relationships, and that we would be better off without it. They strongly disagree with the notion that the fundamental human motivation is Possessive Individualism, seeing it as a perversion brought about by the current social and economic structure. Instead, anarchists are generally optimistic about human nature, believing that without the distortions caused by government, we would live together in peace and co-operation (in absolute contrast to Thomas Hobbes's more pessimistic assessment!). They are also hostile to any form of centrally organised religion. Anarchist ideas derive more from Rousseau than from any of the other major political philosophers.

  For anarchists, the goal is to create a society without any imposed economic or political compulsion, in which class divisions no longer exist, or at least cease to matter; since only then will humans really be free. They may be divided on the question of private property; some accepting it on a small scale, though hostile to large enterprises involving the employment of other people; but others maintaining that all goods should be held in common. They tend to be “simple lifers”, aiming at self-sufficiency as far as is possible, thus cutting out the need for any commerce above the most basic level. 

  I do not see how anarchists can accept the notion of economic Progress, and the key anarchist writers ignore the question entirely. They would presumably follow Rousseau in thinking that the only valid form of government would be that of the peasants meeting under the village tree. Russian anarchists idolised the village community, the “mir” which worked by cooperation rather than Possessive Individualism, but were often deeply disillusioned by the poverty and gross ignorance and superstition they found when they actually went among the peasants. But, with the world’s natural resources being so unevenly distributed, it is difficult to see how any community, no matter how simple its lifestyle, can survive without extensive trade, which must undermine the whole system. (Rousseau, logically, entirely disapproved of international trade as leading only to “luxury” and corruption, and also of cities, of which he disapproved) 

 

  It is only to be expected that there is no single anarchist creed, but instead a number of attitudes held in common. Anarchist theories first emerged with the French Revolution, with writers such as Proudhon and William Godwin. At much the same time, there were various attempts to set up “drop-out” communities in America, on anarchist lines, beyond the reach of government. (only the ones based on religion endured any length of time!)

   The major difference between various anarchist theories involved the use of violence. Some, such as the Russian Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) advocated peaceful co-operation, and pointed out that Possessive Individualism had no relevance in the wilds of Siberia, where there was limitless natural resources but such a harsh climate that people could only survive by cooperation rather than competition. Others, most famously, Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76) preached individual terrorism against current state power. Later versions of this emerged with the “Anarcho-syndicalism” of Georges Sorel (1847-1921), advocating the use of a general strike to bring down the government, and the “Situationists” of the 1960s, who sought to provoke the police into acts of violent repression in order to discredit them.

   Marx was at pains to expel the anarchists, especially Bakunin, from the “First International” of the world socialist movement (1869-70), and was himself denounced by Bakunin for his dictatorial tendencies.

  Anarchism as a political movement was strong in early 20^th-century Spain, where the trades unions were often anarchist in their views, and much of the revolutionary violence in the early stages of the Spanish civil war was carried out by anarchists rather than Marxist socialists.

  Around the start of the 20^th century there were a number of high-profile political assassinations carried out by individual anarchists, such as Elizabeth, wife of the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria (1898), King Umberto of Italy (1900) and President William McKinley of the USA (1901); but the main centre of anarchist violence was Russia. The “People’s Will” group managed to blow up Tsar Alexander II in 1881, and Lenin’s elder brother Alexander Ulyanov was hanged in 1887 for his part in an unsuccessful plot to kill the next Tsar, Alexander III. There were several political murders in the revolutionary chaos of 1905, and during the revolution of 1917-18 the most numerically powerful group was the anarchist-inclined peasant-based party called the Socialist Revolutionaries. But they lacked an organisational structure, and Lenin was able to exclude them from any political power. The aged Kropotkin strongly disapproved of the Bolshevik revolution, but he was such a respected figure in Russia that Lenin thought it best to leave him alone. Any remaining SRs were killed off by Stalin in the 1930s.