{"id":144,"date":"2025-11-21T19:13:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T19:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/?p=144"},"modified":"2025-11-21T19:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T19:13:17","slug":"another-view-syndicalism-anarchism-and-marxism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/another-view-syndicalism-anarchism-and-marxism\/","title":{"rendered":"Another View: Syndicalism, Anarchism and Marxism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the published version of a reply to an article by Marxist Ralph Darlington in Anarchist Studies<\/em> (vol. 17, no. 2). Darlington\u2019s original article appeared in Volume 17, Number 1 of Anarchist Studies<\/em> and discusses the anarchist origins of syndicalism and refutes attempts to include Marxism as one of its influences. It discusses Bakunin\u2019s syndicalist ideas and shows how Marx and Engels explicitly rejected them. Ralph Darlington declined to reply<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Another View: Syndicalism, Anarchism and Marxism[1]<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Iain McKay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the AS special issue on syndicalism, Ralph Darlington seeks to downplay anarchist influence on syndicalism while also suggesting that Marxism was one of its core ideological elements. He ignores both the more obvious influence of Bakunin on the syndicalist tradition and that Marx and Engels explicitly rejected the syndicalist ideas expounded by libertarians in the First International. The supposed conceptions syndicalism is claimed to have inherited from Marxism can all be found in the revolutionary anarchist tradition. Rather than syndicalist ideas being inherited from Marxism, they arose from a large anarchist movement in the 1860s and subsequently influenced a wing of Marxism decades later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords: <\/strong>anarchism, syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism, revolution, unionism, Marxism, Bakunin, Marx<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another View: Syndicalism, Anarchism and Marxism<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

\u2018the anarchists . . . do not seek to constitute, and invite the working men not to constitute, political parties in the parliaments. Accordingly, since the foundation of the International Working Men\u2019s Association in 1864-1866, they have endeavoured to promote their ideas directly amongst the labour organisations and to induce those unions to a direct struggle against capital, without placing their faith in parliamentary legislation.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Kropotkin, The Encyclopaedia Britannica,<\/em> 1910[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ralph Darlington\u2019s article in AS 17 (2)[3]<\/a> tries to defend a provocative assertion in a journal dedicated to studying anarchism, namely that \u2018the traditional assumption . . . that syndicalism was simply an outgrowth of anarchism would be an over-simplification.\u2019 (p. 30) He does so by presenting two main lines of argument. Firstly, that \u2018Marxism <\/em>also influenced\u2019 syndicalism \u2018significantly to varying degrees,\u2019 going so far as to list it as one of its \u2018three core ideological elements\u2019 (p. 46) alongside anarchism and revolutionary unionism. Secondly, that in \u2018many other countries where syndicalist movements also flourished (for example, Britain, Ireland or America), anarchist influence was only of marginal consequence\u2019. (p. 30)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both claims, I would argue, are deeply flawed. The first is simply an assertion, with no supporting evidence, and ignores not only the more obvious influence of Bakunin\u2019s revolutionary anarchism but also Marx and Engels\u2019 explicit rejection of key syndicalist ideas raised by libertarians in the International Working Men\u2019s Association (IWMA). It also stands at odds with a well-established scholarly literature that, while admitting the affinities between some forms of Marxism and syndicalism, nonetheless draws a direct and traceable linkage between anarchism and syndicalism.[4]<\/a> The second confuses the spread<\/em> of syndicalist ideas and their acceptance by Marxists with a pre-existing ideological influence. As such, it crucially ignores the element of time. That a few Marxists found syndicalism more appealing than Social Democratic orthodoxy during the period of the Second International, some twenty years after the IWMA\u2019s collapse, does not support the retroactive claim that syndicalism was indebted to Marx and Engels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anarchism and Syndicalism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The first assertion is that \u2018syndicalism was always an alliance between at least three core ideological elements,\u2019 one of which was Marxism which \u2018influenced it significantly to varying degrees.\u2019 More precisely, \u2018a number of syndicalist movement leaders inherited some central components of the Marxist tradition\u2019 (with the useful qualifier of \u2018in however a diffuse form\u2019) (pp. 46-7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This influence was twofold. First was \u2018the Marxist conception of the necessity and desirability of class struggle (of which strikes were the primary expression) as a means of collective resistance to capitalism that could develop the confidence, organisation and class consciousness of workers.\u2019 Second was \u2018a conception of socialism arising from the need for workers to take power themselves<\/em> rather than relying on the enlightened actions of parliamentary and trade union leaders who would reform capitalism on behalf of<\/em> workers\u2019 (p. 47).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as the first supposed contribution goes, it is essential to note that \u2018the necessity and desirability of class struggle\u2019 had been discovered in working class circles long before Marx invented Marxism.[5]<\/a> Moreover, it is hardly uniquely Marxist as can be seen from Bakunin\u2019s repeated references to both. It follows, therefore, that that characteristic of syndicalism by no means supports Darlington\u2019s inference and so there is no need to invoke Marxism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While concentrating on Bakunin and his ideas I must stress that I am not suggesting that he invented<\/em> syndicalism. Rather I am using him as a convenient source for ideas already germinating within the libertarian wing of the IWMA, ideas he championed and deepened. As such, Bakunin is used as a handy spokesperson for a wider anarchist movement which shared similar ideas on theory and practice. Moreover while syndicalist ideas have developed independently both before and after Bakunin, the ideas he expressed after 1865 and the movement he was part of both had a direct<\/em> influence in the rise of syndicalism as a named revolutionary theory and movement when it developed in the 1890s. This focus on Bakunin also seems appropriate as the syndicalists \u2018viewed themselves as the descendants of the federalist wing of the First International, personified above else by Mikhail Bakunin.\u2019[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Bakunin, like the rest of the revolutionary anarchist tradition, class conflict was inherent in capitalism for there was, \u2018between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, an irreconcilable antagonism which results inevitably from their respective stations in life.\u2019 He stressed that \u2018war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is unavoidable\u2019 and for the worker to \u2018become strong\u2019 he \u2018must unite\u2019 with other workers and form \u2018the union of all local and national workers\u2019 associations into a world-wide association, the great International Working-Men\u2019s Association.<\/em>\u2018 Only \u2018through practice and collective experience\u2019 and \u2018the progressive expansion and development of the economic struggle\u2019 will the worker come \u2018to recognise his true enemies: the privileged classes, including the clergy, the bourgeoisie, and the nobility; and the State, which exists only to safeguard all the privileges of those classes.\u2019 There was \u2018but a single path, that of emancipation through practical action<\/em>\u2018 which \u2018has only one meaning. It means workers\u2019 solidarity in their struggle against the bosses. It means trades-unions, organisation, and the federation of resistance funds<\/em>.\u2019[7]<\/a> Thus \u2018unions create that conscious power without which no victory is possible\u2019 while strikes \u2018create, organise, and form a workers\u2019 army, an army which is bound to break down the power of the bourgeoisie and the State, and lay the ground for a new world.\u2019[8]<\/a> Bertrand Russell stated the obvious when he commented: \u2018Anarchists, like Socialists, usually believe in the doctrine of class war.\u2019[9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the second supposed contribution, the need for workers \u2018to take power\u2019 themselves rather than relying on leaders, this was precisely<\/em> Bakunin\u2019s critique of Marx. For Bakunin, \u2018the new social order\u2019 would be attained \u2018through the social (and therefore anti-political) organisation and power of the working masses of the cities and villages.\u2019[10]<\/a> This meant that anarchists do<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

not accept, even in the process of revolutionary transition, either constituent assemblies, provisional governments or so-called revolutionary dictatorships; because we are convinced that revolution is only sincere, honest and real in the hands of the masses, and that when it is concentrated in those of a few ruling individuals it inevitably and immediately becomes reaction.[11]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rather, the revolution \u2018everywhere 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.\u2019[12]<\/a> This was because \u2018every state, even the pseudo-People\u2019s State concocted by Mr. Marx, is in essence only a machine ruling the masses from above, through a privileged minority of conceited intellectuals who imagine that they know what the people need and want better than do the people themselves.\u2019[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, as well as \u2018anti-state, anti-political action, and anti-militarist ideas\u2019 and \u2018the notions of federalism, decentralisation, direct action and sabotage\u2019 (p. 46), syndicalism took from the revolutionary<\/em> anarchism associated with Bakunin, the \u2018necessity\u2019 of class struggle and<\/em> a \u2018conception of socialism\u2019 based on workers\u2019 power organised (to use one of Bakunin\u2019s favourite terms) \u2018from the bottom up.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So to claim that class struggle and workers\u2019 power were the contributions of Marxism to syndicalism means ignoring a far more obvious source for these ideas \u2013 Bakunin and other revolutionary anarchists in the IWMA. Given this, it seems odd to invoke Marxism to explain aspects of syndicalism particularly since, as I will show, Marx and Engels explicitly rejected syndicalist ideas when they were raised by those libertarians in favour of forming political parties and utilising elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The redundancy of invoking Marxism to explain syndicalism can also be seen from what Darlington calls syndicalism\u2019s \u2018utter primacy of the working class as the sole agency of revolution that could liberate the whole of society.\u2019 (p. 47) Bakunin also argued that the \u2018initiative in the new movement will belong to the people . . . in Western Europe, to the city and factory workers \u2013 in Russia, Poland, and most of the Slavic countries, to the peasants.\u2019 \u2018Organise the city proletariat in the name of revolutionary Socialism\u2019, he stressed repeatedly, and \u2018unite it into one preparatory organisation together with the peasantry.\u2019[14]<\/a> However, \u2018in order that the peasants rise up, it is absolutely necessary that the initiative in this revolutionary movement be taken up by the city workers . . . who combine in themselves the instincts, ideas, and conscious will of the Social Revolution.\u2019[15]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there is the issue of trade unionism. Here Darlington does indulge in a tautology by asserting that \u2018arguably we can define\u2019 syndicalism as \u2018revolutionary trade unionism\u2019 (p. 31) and then proclaiming that one of its \u2018three core ideological elements\u2019 are \u2018the ideas of revolutionary trade unionism<\/em>.\u2019[16]<\/a> (pp. 46; 47) Yet revolutionary unionism was a core aspect of Bakunin\u2019s ideas: \u2018the natural organisation of the masses . . . is organisation based on the various ways that their various types of work define their day-to-day life; it is organisation by trade association.\u2019 Once \u2018every occupation . . . is represented within the International, its organisation, the organisation of the masses of the people will be complete.\u2019 Then, \u2018when the revolution . . . breaks out, the International will be a real force and know what it has to do,\u2019 namely \u2018take the revolution into its own hands\u2019 and replace \u2018this departing political world of States and bourgeoisie.\u2019[17]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, it is incredible to suggest that when the CNT was founded in 1911 it \u2018combined syndicalist<\/em> principles of revolutionary unionism with the more traditional Spanish anarchist<\/em> principles.\u2019 (p. 36) This ignores the well-established recognition that the Spanish anarchists had traditionally organised revolutionary unions. The Spanish section of the IWMA \u2018was from the beginning based upon unions\u2019 and organised \u2018by local councils in each town, and national unions for each branch of production.\u2019 One leading Spanish anarchist noted in 1910 that only the term \u2018syndicalism\u2019 was new.[18]<\/a> In Zaragoza, for example, anarchist union organising began in 1871 and when the CNT formed 40 years later that city was the \u2018largest centre of anarchist trade-union influence in Spain, outside Barcelona.\u2019[19]<\/a> As such, syndicalism\u2019s \u2018theoretical and practical links to the nineteenth century are readily apparent.\u2019[20]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As historian J. Romero Maura correctly summarised, for the \u2018Bakuninists\u2019 in the IWMA the \u2018anarchist revolution, when it came, would be essentially brought about by the working class. Revolutionaries needed to gather great strength and must beware of underestimating the strength of reaction\u2019 and so anarchists \u2018logically decided that revolutionaries had better organise along the lines of labour organisations.\u2019[21]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, Darlington is incorrect to suggest that \u2018the core of syndicalist philosophy was not explicitly anarchist in character\u2019. (p. 44) Comparing it with the ideas of Bakunin we discover identical<\/em> theories and practices:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Toilers count no longer on anyone but yourselves. Do not demoralise and paralyse your growing strength by being duped into alliances with bourgeois Radicalism . . . Abstain from all participation in bourgeois Radicalism and organise outside of it the forces of the proletariat. The bases of this organisation . . . are the workshops and the federation of workshops . . . instruments of struggle against the bourgeoisie, and their federation, not only national, but international . . . when the hour of revolution sounds, you will proclaim the liquidation of the State and of bourgeois society, anarchy, that is to say the true, frank people\u2019s revolution.[22]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A similar vision was expounded in 1872 when the anarchists within the IWMA gathered at St. Imier. Rejecting political action, they argued that \u201cthe proletarians of every land should establish solidarity of revolutionary action outside of all bourgeois politicking.\u201d They advocated the \u201cOrganisation of Labour Resistance\u201d as it created \u201ca community of interests, trains [the proletariat] in collective living and prepares it for the supreme struggle.\u201d The strike was regarded \u201cas a precious weapon in the struggle\u201d and \u201ca product of the antagonism between labour and capital.\u201d These \u201cordinary economic struggles\u201d prepare \u201cthe proletariat for the great and final revolutionary conquest\u201d which will destroy \u201call class difference.\u201d The future society would be created by the \u201cproletariat itself, its trades bodies and the autonomous communes.\u201d[23]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Bertrand Russell summarised: \u2018Hardly any of these ideas [associated with syndicalism] are new: almost all are derived from the Bakunist [sic!] section of the old International.\u2019[24]<\/a> In this he was echoing Malatesta[25]<\/a>, Kropotkin[26]<\/a> and Goldman[27]<\/a> (a position Rudolf Rocker repeated decades later[28]<\/a>). Many academics have made the same connection.[29]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly, at the 1907 International Anarchist Congress both<\/em> Malatesta and French Syndicalist Pierre Monatte linked revolutionary syndicalism with (to quote Monatte) the \u2018ideas of autonomy and federation\u2019 expounded by those who \u2018took sides with Bakunin\u2019 and had \u2018rose up against the abuse of power by the general council\u2019 in the First International.[30]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If syndicalism is defined as the believe that \u2018unions should go beyond merely attempting to improve workers\u2019 terms and conditions of employment within the framework of capitalist society, to become the instrument through which workers could overthrow capitalism and establish a new society\u2019 (p. 48) then it is clear that Bakunin advocated such a theory.[31]<\/a> Sadly, Darlington does not discuss how syndicalism differs from the revolutionary unionism expounded by libertarians in the IWMA and after.[32]<\/a> However, to claim that \u2018syndicalist<\/em> principles of revolutionary unionism combined with anarchist<\/em> notions\u2019 (p. 38) would suggest unawareness that revolutionary unionism had been advocated decades before \u2018syndicalism\u2019 was used to describe these ideas.[33]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darlington\u2019s second argument in support of Marxist influence on syndicalism is that many syndicalist movements developed in countries without a large anarchist presence. This, however, ignores that these movements developed in response to, and were influenced by, syndicalist movements elsewhere<\/em> where there was<\/em> significant anarchist influence (such as France). Given the role of unions in revolutionary anarchist theory and practice from the 1860s onwards, the rise of these initial syndicalist movements would testify to that very influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Italian syndicalists, for example, \u2018drew considerable inspiration from their French brethren\u2019[34]<\/a> while \u2018the founders\u2019 of the IWW \u2018did draw on the experience of the French syndicalists.\u2019[35]<\/a> In Britain, syndicalists \u2018drew much from the overseas syndicalist experience\u2019[36]<\/a> (particularly of the CGT and the IWW). Over time, syndicalist ideas did spread to labour movements in countries without large anarchist movements but that hardly diminishes the significance of the links between syndicalism and anarchism. As George Sorel observed,[37]<\/a> these self-proclaimed Marxists utilised the theories and practice of existing<\/em> syndicalist organisations in countries which did<\/em> have significant libertarian influence.[38]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So while not all syndicalists considered themselves anarchists, syndicalism itself originally came from revolutionary anarchism which had advocated revolutionary unionism from the start.<\/em> This was reflected both theoretically and practically, with anarchists producing revolutionary union movements in Spain, Mexico,[39]<\/a> America[40]<\/a> and elsewhere before the 1890s. Ironically, Darlington himself shows this to be the case when he states that \u2018anarcho-syndicalism became a potent force after the Russian anarchist Bakunin had arrived\u2019 in Italy \u2018in the late 1860s.\u2019 (p. 35) His admission is difficult to reconcile with the assertion that Marxism<\/em> was one of syndicalism\u2019s \u2018three core ideological elements\u2019.[41]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marx and Engels against Syndicalism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the obvious similarities in Bakunin\u2019s politics and syndicalism, there is the awkward fact for Darlington that while he proclaims Marxism as one of syndicalism\u2019s \u2018core ideological elements\u2019 Marx and Engels explicitly rejected such ideas. Marx attacked Bakunin for thinking that the \u2018working classes must not occupy itself with politics. <\/em>They must only organise themselves by trades-unions.\u2019[42]<\/a> Engels dismissed the general strike as \u2018the lever employed by which the social revolution is started\u2019 in the \u2018Bakuninist programme\u2019 while suggesting they admitted \u2018this required a well-formed organisation of the working class\u2019[43]<\/a> (that is, Bakunin aimed to \u2018organise, and when all<\/em> the workers . . . are won over . . . abolish the state and replace it with the organisation of the International.\u2019) [44]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, they routinely mocked the notion, popular in the libertarian wing of the organisation, that the International should both prefigure and become the future structure of a socialist society. For Bakunin, the \u2018organisation of the trade sections and their representation by the Chambers of Labour . . . bear in themselves the living seeds of the new society which is to replace the old world. They are creating not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself.\u2019[45]<\/a> For Engels, the Bakuninists told the proletariat \u2018to organise not in accordance with the requirements of the struggle . . . but according to the vague notions of a future society entertained by some dreamers.\u2019[46]<\/a> As Bakunin explained, the \u2018future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom upwards, by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their unions, then in the communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation, international and universal.\u2019[47]<\/a> For Engels the \u2018democratic republic\u2019 was \u2018the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat\u2019[48]<\/a> (although the Paris Commune showed that \u2018the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administrative centralised state power before it can use it for its own purposes.\u2019) [49]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If \u2018the essence of syndicalism was revolutionary action by unions aimed at establishing a society based upon unions\u2019 (p. 31) then this is found in Bakunin, not in Marx and Engels. Indeed, they highlighted these aspects of Bakunin\u2019s ideas \u2013 the centrality of union organisation and struggle (including the general strike) \u2013 and expressed their opposition<\/em> to them. Moreover, as well as rejecting key syndicalist ideas, Marx and Engels also advocated what many revolutionary socialists, as Darlington admits, came to consider as the \u2018dead-end of electoral and parliamentary politics.\u2019 (p. 46) The subsequent development of social democracy confirmed Bakunin\u2019s fears on using elections rather than Marx\u2019s hopes.[50]<\/a> So when Darlington correctly suggests that when \u2018many syndicalists dismissed\u2019 political action, \u2018rejecting\u2019 electoral politics, he fails to note that they adopted the same \u2018narrow definition of political action\u2019 (p. 47) as had Bakunin in the First International.[51]<\/a> It was precisely this \u2018narrow definition of political action\u2019 which Marx and Engels inflicted upon the IWMA against the libertarians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is true, as Darlington suggests, that many Marxists became syndicalists as \u2018a reaction\u2019 against social democracy.[52]<\/a> Sadly, he fails to raise the question of why<\/em> social democracy became reformist, instead stating that these were \u2018reformist socialist parties\u2019 (p. 47) so ignoring that, at the time, there were not \u2013 they considered themselves as revolutionary<\/em> parties explicitly following the ideas of Marx and Engels on \u2018political action.\u2019 True, a substantial revisionist tendency existed within these parties and, moreover, their rhetoric was not reflected in their practice, but it should not be forgotten that they prided themselves in being revolutionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if social democracy put the \u2019emphasis on parliamentarism at the expense of the direct action of the workers\u2019 (p. 47) it is fair to say that the focus that Marx and Engels placed on \u2018political action\u2019 helped this process immensely.[53]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hard not to conclude that if syndicalism is marked, as Darlington suggests, by a \u2018rejection of political parties, elections and parliament in favour of direct action by the unions\u2019 and a \u2018conception of a future society\u2019 based on \u2018the economic administration of industry exercised directly by the workers themselves\u2019 (p. 29) then not only were Marx and Engels not syndicalists, they were explicitly opposed<\/em> to it. Given this, to claim that Marxism is one of syndicalism\u2019s \u2018core ideological elements\u2019 seems rather strange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assessing success<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Darlington argues \u2018revolutionary syndicalism was short-lived and ultimately unsuccessful in achieving its overall aims \u2013 particularly when compared to the architects of the Russian revolution\u2019 (p. 49).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That raises the obvious question of what counts as success. If we look at the \u2018overall aims\u2019 of \u2018the architects of the Russian revolution\u2019 then this revolution was \u2018ultimately unsuccessful\u2019 \u2013 unless you assume that the \u2018overall aims\u2019 were to create within one year a one-party dictatorship presiding over a state capitalist economy or that this counts as a \u2018successful\u2019 socialist<\/em> transformation. So while it may be correct to say that the Bolshevik Party successfully seized and held onto power this was utterly unsuccessful<\/em> in creating socialism<\/em> \u2013 which was the whole point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darlington is partially correct to suggest that \u2018it was the seizure of state power by Russian workers under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party . . . which was to prove a decisive ideological and political challenge to the revolutionary syndicalist movement\u2019. (p. 49) Partially, because squeezed between fascism and Bolshevism (and then Stalinism) syndicalism did<\/em> become marginalised as the negative influence and abundant resources of the Comintern (particularly, but not exclusively, under Stalin) and the illusions generated by the Bolshevik Myth sidetracked revolutionary movements across the world. The dream of socialism realised allowed far too many to blind themselves to the realities of Soviet Russia under Lenin and then Stalin.[54]<\/a> This cannot be ignored when evaluating why syndicalism did not flourish after the First World War as it had beforehand.[55]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would suggest that Darlington\u2019s summary of the Russian revolution shows that the Bolshevik Myth still has its adherents. As anarchist and syndicalist critics of Bolshevism explained, a key problem was precisely that it had been the Bolshevik Party<\/em> which seized power, not the<\/em> Russian workers[56]<\/a> \u2013 with predictable (and predicted, by Bakunin) consequences.[57]<\/a> While many in the revolutionary movement did expose the failings of Bolshevism,[58]<\/a> not enough believed them. Luckily, today these are too well known in radical circles for this to be repeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, the Bolshevik revolution has associated socialist ideas with their exact opposite. It is a legacy which the socialist and labour movements have still not recovered from. This, by any objective measure, must be considered far more \u2018unsuccessful\u2019 than the syndicalist movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Instead of seeking elements of syndicalism in Marxism, I would suggest that \u2018the traditional assumption\u2019 that syndicalism was \u2018simply an outgrowth of anarchism\u2019 is no \u2018over-simplification\u2019. All<\/em> of Darlington\u2019s supposed contributions of Marxism to syndicalism can be found in Bakunin\u2019s ideas. Moreover, other key elements of syndicalism identified by Darlington can also be found in Bakunin and, ironically, were denounced by Marx and Engels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than see unions and direct action as the key as Bakunin did, Marx and Engels advocated the creation of socialist political parties and use of (bourgeois) elections. So strongly did they feel about this they shattered the IWMA by making those mandatory policies for it. If syndicalism is marked, as Darlington says, by a \u2018rejection of political parties, elections and parliament in favour of direct action by the unions\u2019 and a \u2018conception of a future society\u2019 based on \u2018the economic administration of industry exercised directly by the workers themselves\u2019 then it seems strange to seek a \u2018core\u2019 ideological influence on it in the ideas of people who explicitly rejected this. Kropotkin, therefore, was right to point to \u2018the closest rapport between the left-wing of the International and present-day syndicalism, the close rapport between anarchism and syndicalism and the ideological contrast between Marxism and the principles of Social Democracy and syndicalism.\u2019[59]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of trying to squeeze Marxism into syndicalism, it would be better to ask why so many \u2018Marxists\u2019 rejected the legacy of Marx and embraced positions (revolutionary unionism, primacy of economic struggle, the general strike, unions as the structure of a socialist society, etc.) which were expounded by Bakunin and attacked by the founders of their ideology. Looking at what the syndicalists themselves said, the ideas of Bakunin and what Marx and Engels advocated, it quickly becomes apparently that Marxism was not one of the \u2018core ideological elements\u2019 of syndicalism. In reality, syndicalism was simply, as so many syndicalists and others stressed, a new name for the ideas raised in the IWMA and for which Bakunin was a leading advocate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have shown that there are very good reasons why \u2018[m]any historians have emphasised the extent to which revolutionary syndicalism was indebted to anarchist philosophy in general and to Bakunin in particular\u2019. (p. 29) We need only compare Bakunin\u2019s politics and revolutionary syndicalism. Marxism, in conclusion, need not be invoked to explain revolutionary syndicalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Antonioli, Maurizio (ed.), 2009. The International Anarchist Congress Amsterdam (1907), <\/em>Translation and English edition by Nestor McNab, Alberta: Black Cat Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apter, D. and Joll, J (eds.), 1971. Anarchism Today<\/em>, London: Macmillan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avrich, Paul, 1978. The Russian Anarchists<\/em>, New York: W.W. Norton & Company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avrich, Paul. 1984. The Haymarket Tragedy<\/em>, Princeton: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avrich, Paul, 1988. Anarchist Portraits<\/em>, Princeton: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arshinov, Peter 1987. The History of the Makhnovist Movement<\/em>, London: Freedom Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bakunin, Michael, <\/strong>1953. The Political Philosophy of Bakunin<\/em>, G.P. Maximov (ed.), New York: The Free Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bakunin, Michael, <\/strong>1973. Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings<\/em>, Arthur Lehning (ed.), London: Jonathan Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bakunin, Michael, <\/strong>1980. Bakunin on Anarchism<\/em>, 2nd Edition, Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Montreal: Black Rose Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bakunin, Micheal, 1994. The Basic Bakunin<\/em>, Robert M. Cutler (trans. and ed.), Buffalo, N.Y: Promethus Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berkman, Alexander, 1989. The Bolshevik Myth<\/em>, London: Pluto Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cahm, Caroline, 1989. Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism 1872-1886,<\/em> Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esenwein, George Richard, 1989. Anarchist Ideology and the Working Class Movement in Spain, 1868-1898<\/em>, Berkeley: University of California Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glassgold, Peter (ed.), 2001. Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman\u2019s Mother Earth<\/em>, Washington D.C: Counterpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goldman, Emma, 1998. Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader<\/em>, 3rd Edition, Alix Kates Shulman (ed.), New York: Humanity Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goldman, Emma, 1970. My Disillusionment in Russia,<\/em> New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graham, Robert (ed.), 2005, Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas <\/em>Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), Montreal\/New York\/London: Black Rose Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hart, John M., 1987. Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931<\/em>, Austin: University of Texas Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holton, Bob, 1976. British Syndicalism: 1900-1914: Myths and Realities<\/em>, London: Pluto Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaplan, Temma, 1965. Anarchists of Andalusia: 1868-1903,<\/em> Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kautsky, Karl, 1996. The road to power: political reflections on growing into the revolution, <\/em>Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelsey, Graham A., 1991. Anarchosyndicalism, libertarian communism and the state: the CNT in Zaragoza and Aragon 1930-1937<\/em>, Dordrecht, London: International Institute of Social History.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenafick, K.J., 1948. Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx<\/em>, Melbourne. Privately Published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kropotkin, Peter, 2002. Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings,<\/em> Roger N. Baldwin (ed.), New York: Dover Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kropotkin, Peter, 1988. Act for Yourselves: articles from Freedom 1886-1907<\/em>, N. Walter and H. Becker (eds.), London: Freedom Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leval, Gaston, 1975. Collectives in the Spanish Revolution,<\/em> London: Freedom Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, 1978. The socialist revolution<\/em>, F. Teplov and V. Davydov (eds.) Moscow: Progess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nettlau, Max, 1996. A Short History of Anarchism<\/em>, London: Freedom Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parsons, Albert R. (ed.), 2003. Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis<\/em>, Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pernicone, Nunzio, 1993. Italian Anarchism: 1864-1892<\/em>, Princeton: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quail, John, 1978, The Slow Burning Fuse: The Lost History of the British Anarchists, <\/em>London: Granada Publishing Ltd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rocker, Rudolf, 2004. Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice,<\/em> Edinburgh\/Oakland: AK Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salerno, Salvatore, 1989. Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World,<\/em> Albany: State University Press of New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schmidt, Michael and Walt, Lucien van der, 2009. Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism<\/em>, Edinburgh\/Oakland: AK Press,.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sorel, Georges, 1999. Reflections on Violence<\/em>, Jeremy Jennings (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thompson, E.P., 1991. The Making of the English Working Class<\/em>, London: Penguin Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thorpe, Wayne, 1989. \u2018The Workers Themselves\u2019: Revolutionary Syndicalism and International Labour, 1913-1923<\/em>, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

End Notes<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> I would like to thank Lucien van der Walt for his useful comments on previous versions of this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Kropotkin in Baldwin (ed.), Anarchism<\/em>, p. 287.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> \u2018Syndicalism and the Influence of Anarchism in France, Italy and Spain\u2019, pp. 29-54,Anarchist Studies<\/em>, 17 (2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> This extensive literature is ably summarised by Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt in Black Flame<\/em>. See Chapter 5 (\u2018Anarchists, Syndicalists, the IWW and Labour\u2019) in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Indeed, when Bakunin and other libertarians advocated a syndicalist strategy in the 1860s within the IWMA they independently discovered a strategy pursued by British workers in the 1830s. \u2018When Marx was still in his teens\u2019 British trade unionists had \u2018developed, stage by stage, a theory of syndicalism.\u2019 This vision was lost \u2018in the terrible defeats of 1834 and 1835.\u2019 (E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class<\/em>, p. 912, p. 913).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Wayne Thorpe, \u2018The Workers Themselves\u2019<\/em>,pp. xiii-xiv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a>Bakunin, in Cutler (ed.), The Basic Bakunin<\/em>, pp. 97-8, p. 103.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Bakunin in Maximoff (ed.), The Political Philosophy of Bakunin<\/em>, p. 379, pp. 384-5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> Russell, Roads to Freedom<\/em>, p. 38.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin<\/em>, p. 300.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> Bakunin in Lehning (ed.), Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings<\/em>, p. 237, p. 172.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a> Bakunin, Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings<\/em>, p. 237, p. 172.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/a> Bakunin in Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchism<\/em>, p. 338.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/a> Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin<\/em>, p. 378.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]<\/a> The Political Philosophy of Bakunin<\/em>, p. 375. Alvin W. Gouldner usefully discusses the \u2018popular stereotype\u2019 associated with Bakunin\u2019s ideas on social class and revolution, noting it is \u2018more distorted by its decisive omissions than in what it says.\u2019 (\u2018Marx\u2019s Last Battle: Bakunin and the First International\u2019, pp. 853-884, Theory and Society<\/em>, Vol. 11, No. 6, p. 869).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]<\/a> Given that Darlington does not actually define what \u2018revolutionary unionism\u2019 is, it makes it difficult to determine whether he thinks it does, or does not, differ from syndicalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17]<\/a> Bakunin, The Basic Bakunin<\/em>, pp. 139; 110.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18]<\/a> Temma Kaplan, Anarchists of Andalusia: 1868-1903<\/em>, p. 82.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[19]<\/a> Graham A. Kelsey, Anarchosyndicalism, libertarian communism and the state,<\/em> pp. 13-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[20]<\/a> George R. Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology and the Working Class Movement in Spain, 1868-1898<\/em>, p. 208.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[21]<\/a> \u2018The Spanish case,\u2019 pp. 60-83, Anarchism Today<\/em>, D. Apter and J. Joll (eds.), p. 66.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[22]<\/a> Bakunin, quoted by K.J. Kenafick, Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx<\/em>, pp. 120-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[23]<\/a> Graham, Robert (Ed.), Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, <\/em>volume 1, pp. 99-100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[24]<\/a> Moreover, this was \u2018often recognised by Syndicalists themselves.\u2019 (Russell, p. 52). David Berry also notes that \u2018anarchist syndicalists were keen to establish a lineage with Bakunin . . . the anarchist syndicalism of the turn of the century was a revival of a tactic\u2019 associated with \u2018the Bakuninist International\u2019 (A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917-1945<\/em>, p. 17). The syndicalists, notes Wayne Thorpe, \u2018identified the First International with its federalist wing . . . [r]epresented . . . initially by the Proudhonists and later and more influentially by the Bakuninists.\u2019 (p. 2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[25]<\/a> \u2018I have never stopped \u2026 pushing comrades to the path that syndicalists, forgetting a glorious past, call new<\/em>, but the first anarchists had already established and followed within the international. \u2018 (Maurizio Antonioli (ed.), The International Anarchist Congress Amsterdam (1907)<\/em>, p. 122) Space preludes a discussion of what I consider Darlington\u2019s misreading of Malatesta\u2019s critique of syndicalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[26]<\/a> \u2018Revolutionary Anarchist Communist propaganda within the Labour Unions,\u2019 Kropotkin explained, \u2018had always been a favourite mode of action in the Federalist or \u2018Bakuninist\u2019 section of the International Working Men\u2019s Association. In Spain and in Italy it had been especially successful. Now it was resorted to, with evident success, in France and Freedom<\/em> eagerly advocated this sort of propaganda.\u2019 (Kropotkin, Act For Yourselves<\/em>, pp. 119-20) He repeatedly stressed that \u2018the current opinions of the French syndicalists are organically linked with the early ideas of the left wing of the International\u2019 (quoted by Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism<\/em> p. 279) I must note that Kropotkin\u2019s position was not<\/em> suggested in response to the rise of syndicalism. In 1881, for example, he was arguing that the French libertarians follow the example of their Spanish comrades who had remained faithful to \u2018the Anarchist traditions of the International\u2019 and \u2018bring this energy to workers\u2019 organisations.\u2019 His \u2018advice to the French workers\u2019 was \u2018to take up again . . . the tradition of the International\u2019 (quoted by Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution<\/em>, p. 31).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[27]<\/a> In the IWMA \u2018Bakunin and the Latin workers\u2019 forged ahead \u2018along industrial and Syndicalist lines\u2019 and\u2018Syndicalism is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism\u2019(Goldman, Red Emma Speaks<\/em>, p. 89, p. 91). Her comrade Max Baginski argued that it was Bakunin\u2019s \u2018militant spirit that breathes now in the best expressions of the Syndicalist and I.W.W. movements\u2019 and these expressed \u2018a strong world wide revival of the ideas for which Bakunin laboured throughout his life.\u2019 (Peter Glassgold (ed.), Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman\u2019s Mother Earth,<\/em> p. 71).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[28]<\/a> \u2018Modern Anarcho-Syndicalism is a direct continuation of those social aspirations which took shape in the bosom of the First International and which were best understood and most strongly held by the libertarian wing of the great workers\u2019 alliance.\u2019 (Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism<\/em>, p. 54).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[29]<\/a> For example: Syndicalism \u2018can be traced to Bakunin\u2019s revolutionary collectivism.\u2019 (Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology<\/em>, p. 209); \u2018Bakunin, perhaps even more than Proudhon, was a prophet of revolutionary syndicalism.\u2019 (Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits<\/em>, pp. 14-15); The \u2018basic syndicalist ideas of Bakunin\u2019 meant he \u2018argued that trade union organisation and activity in the International were important in the building of working-class power in the struggle against capital . . . He also declared that trade union based organisation of the International would not only guide the revolution but also provide the basis for the organisation of the society of the future.\u2019 For Kropotkin syndicalism \u2018represented a revival of the great movement of the Anti-authoritarian International.\u2019 (Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism<\/em>, p. 219, p. 215, p. 268); \u2018many anarchists, including Bakunin, had long recognised the revolutionary potential of syndicalism.\u2019 (Nunzio Pernicone, Italian Anarchism: 1864\u20131892<\/em>, p. 117).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[30]<\/a> Maurizio Antonioli (ed.), The International Anarchist Congress Amsterdam (1907)<\/em>, p. 110. Monatte also pointed to \u2018idea of the proletariat organised into \u2018resistance societies\u2019, being the agent of the social revolution that lay at the heart of the great International Working Men\u2019s Association.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[31]<\/a> Kropotkin also argued that unions were both \u2018natural organs for the direct struggle with capitalism and for the composition of the future order.\u2019 (quoted by Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists<\/em>, p. 81).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[32]<\/a> Particularly, as Kropotkin notes, \u2018[w]ithin these federations [of the IMWA] developed . . . what may be described as modern anarchism<\/em>.\u2019 (Anarchism<\/em>, p. 294).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[33]<\/a> This even applies of the red-and-black flag usually associated with anarcho-syndicalism but which was first used by anarchists in the IWMA in the 1870s (Pernicone, p. 93, pp. 124-7). For example, by the end of the 1870s \u2018the historic red-and-black flag of anarchism\u2019 had \u2018became the official symbol of the Mexican labour movement\u2019 (John M. Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931<\/em>, p. 48).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[34]<\/a> Thorpe, \u2018Workers Themselves\u2019<\/em>, p. 36.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[35]<\/a> Salvatore Salerno, Red November, Black November<\/em>, p. 94. Salerno has a useful chapter discussing the influence of the CGT on the IWW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[36]<\/a> Bob Holton, British Syndicalism: 1910-1914<\/em>, p. 50. Anarchist historian John Quail notes that British anarchists while relatively few in number \u2018did provide the means by whereby the ideas of the French revolutionary Syndicalists could reach a wider audience\u2019 (The Slow Burning Fuse<\/em>, p. 236).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[37]<\/a> Unlike many commentators who proclaim Sorel as the father of syndicalism, he himself stated that historians \u2018will one day see in this entry of the anarchists into the syndicats<\/em> one of the greatest events that has been produced in our time\u2019 (Reflections on Violence<\/em>, p. 35).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[38]<\/a> This raises the interesting question of, regardless of their self-proclaimed Marxism, how far these individuals can be considered as Marxists given that both Marx and Engels explicitly rejected<\/em> the syndicalist ideas raised by the libertarian wing of the IWMA. Schmidt and van der Walt suggest that such Marxists are better considered anarchists due to their embrace of positions advocated by Bakunin and rejected by Marx and Engels. Space precludes discussion of this issue beyond stating that \u2018Marxist\u2019 becomes so elastic to be meaningless if it embraces those who politics are close, if not identical, to Bakunin\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[39]<\/a> By the late 1870s the anarchists had become \u2018strongest force in Mexican labour\u2019 and the Congreso Nacional de Obreros Mexcano was \u2018affiliated with the Jura-based anarchist international\u2019 (Hart, p. 59, p. 27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[40]<\/a> The anarchist dominated International Working People\u2019s Association (IWPA) \u2018anticipated by some twenty years the doctrine of anarcho-syndicalism.\u2019 The IWPA\u2019s legacy influenced the IWW, whose\u2018principles of industrial unionism resulted from the conscious efforts of anarchists . . . who continued to affirm . . . the principles which the Chicago anarchists gave their lives defending.\u2019 (Salvatore Salerno, Red November, Black November<\/em>, p. 51, p. 79) As Paul Avrich reports, the Chicago anarchists\u2019 ideas allow them to \u2018penetrate deeply into the labour movement and attract a large working class following.\u2019 He also agrees they \u2018anticipated by some twenty years\u2019 anarcho-syndicalism although he adds that these ideas had \u2018originated\u2019 in the 1860s and 1870s when \u2018the followers of Proudhon and Bakunin in the First International were proposing the formation of workers\u2019 councils designed both as a weapon of class struggle against capitalists and as the structural basis of the future libertarian society\u2019 (Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy<\/em>, p. 73).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[41]<\/a> To this must be added the opinion of leading Marxists at the time. Karl Kautsky considered syndicalism as \u2018the most recent variety of anarchism\u2019 and noted \u2018its anarchist ancestry\u2019 (The Road to Power<\/em>, p. 41, p. 67) while Lenin, referring to Germany in the 1880s and 1890s, wrote of \u2018the growth of anarcho-syndicalism, or anarchism, as it was then called\u2019 (Collected Works<\/em>, vol. 16, p. 351).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[42]<\/a> Marx, Collected Works<\/em>, vol. 43, p. 490.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[43]<\/a> Engels, Collected Works<\/em>, vol. 23, pp. 584-5. Space precludes a discussion of what Engels wrote about the \u2018Bakuninist\u2019 general strike and what the \u2018Bakuninists\u2019 themselves actually advocated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[44]<\/a> Engels, Collected Works<\/em>, vol. 44, p. 305.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[45]<\/a> Bakunin, Bakunin on Anarchism<\/em>, p. 255. Compare this to the syndicalist CGT\u2019s 1906 Charter of Amiens which declared \u2018the trade union today is an organisation of resistance\u2019 but \u2018in the future [it will] be the organisation of production and distribution, the basis of social reorganisation\u2019 (quoted by Thorpe, \u2018The Workers Themselves\u2019 p. 201).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[46]<\/a> Engels, Collected Works<\/em>, vol. 23, p. 66.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[47]<\/a> Bakunin, Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings<\/em>, p. 206.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[48]<\/a> Engels, Collected Works,<\/em> vol. 27, p. 227. Engels re-iterated this elsewhere: \u2018With respect to the proletariat the republic differs from the monarchy only in that it is the ready-for-use<\/em> form for the future rule of the proletariat\u2019 (Marx and Engels, The Socialist Revolution<\/em>, p. 296).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[49]<\/a> Engels, Collected Works,<\/em> vol. 47, p. 74. I explore the issue of the Paris Commune and its relationship with anarchism and Marxism in \u2018The Paris Commune, Marxism and Anarchism\u2019<\/a> (Anarcho-Syndicalist Review<\/em>, no. 50).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[50]<\/a> Bakunin argued that when \u2018common workers\u2019 are sent \u2018to Legislative Assemblies\u2019 the result is that the \u2018worker-deputies, transplanted into a bourgeois environment, into an atmosphere of purely bourgeois ideas, will in fact cease to be workers and, becoming Statesmen, they will become bourgeois . . . For men do not make their situations; on the contrary, men are made by them\u2019 (Bakunin, The Basic Bakunin<\/em>, p. 108).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[51]<\/a> \u2018The International does not reject politics of a general kind; it will be compelled to intervene in politics so long as it is forced to struggle against the bourgeoisie. It rejects only bourgeois politics\u2019 (Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin<\/em>, p. 313).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[52]<\/a> The first case of this would be in the American socialist movement in the 1880s with many embracing of anarchism and forming the IWPA in reaction to experiences of using \u2018political action.\u2019 Compare Bakunin\u2019s ideas to Lucy Parsons: \u2018we hold that the granges, trade-unions, Knights of Labour assemblies, etc., are the embryonic groups of the ideal anarchistic society\u2019 (Albert R. Parsons (ed.), Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis<\/em>, p. 110).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[53]<\/a> For Marx, universal suffrage was \u2018the equivalent of political power for the working class\u2019 and its \u2018inevitable result\u2019 would be \u2018the political supremacy of the working class.\u2019 <\/em>(Marx, Collected Works<\/em>, vol. 11, pp. 335-6) In countries \u2018like America, England . . . the workers may achieve their aims by peaceful means\u2019 (Marx, vol. 23, p. 255). Engels expanded on this, arguing that in Britain, \u2018democracy means the dominion of the working class\u2019 and so workers should \u2018use the power already in their hands, the actual majority they possess . . . to send to Parliament men of their own order.\u2019 The worker \u2018struggles for political power, for direct representation of his class in the legislature\u2019 for in \u2018every struggle of class against class, the next end fought for is political power; the ruling class defends its political supremacy, that is to say its safe majority in the Legislature; the inferior class fights for, first a share, then the whole of that power\u2019 (vol. 24, p. 405, p. 386). In America, the workers must form a political party with \u2018the conquest of the Capitol and the White House for its goal\u2019 (vol. 26, p. 435).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[54]<\/a> Ex-syndicalists like William Gallacher and William Foster remained Stalinists to the end, happily denying its dictatorial nature while denouncing those who recognised that something had gone seriously wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[55]<\/a> Or, for that matter, why Trotskyist and neo-Trotskyist parties remained so small and insignificant in spite of the obvious failings of Stalinist Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[56]<\/a> Lenin was quite clear on this arguing in 1917 that the \u2018Bolsheviks must assume power.\u2019 The Bolsheviks \u2018can and must<\/em> take state power into their own hands.\u2019 He raised the question of \u2018will the Bolsheviks dare take over full state power alone?\u2019 and answered it: \u2018I have already had occasion . . . to answer this question in the affirmative.\u2019 Moreover, \u2018a political party . . . would have no right to exist, would be unworthy of the name of party . . . if it refused to take power when opportunity offers.\u2019 (Collected Works<\/em>, vol. 26, p. 19, p. 90) The problems of equating Bolshevik power with working class power soon became apparent when the party lost popular support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[57]<\/a> Space precludes any discussion of the interplay of subjective (e.g., Bolshevik ideology) and objective factors (e.g., civil war, economic collapse, etc.) here. Suffice to say, supporters of Leninism minimise the former and maximise the latter and so, I would argue, present a distorted picture of what caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[58]<\/a> For example: Emma Goldman\u2019s My Disillusionment in Russia<\/em>, Alexander Berkman\u2019s The Bolshevik Myth <\/em>and Peter Arshinov\u2019s The History of the Makhnovist Movement<\/em>. The eye-witness reports by syndicalist militants like Angel Pesta\u00f1a, Augustin Souchy and Armando Borghi to their unions also ensured that many libertarian unionists rejected Leninism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[59]<\/a> quoted by Nettlau, pp. 279-80.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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