The October-November 2001 issue of New Socialist included an article by Todd Gordon and Jerome Klassen entitled "Anarchism, Marxism and Renewing Socialism from Below." The editors of New Socialist are pleased to publish a reply from Wayne Price on behalf of the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists.

This is a response to the brief essay by two members of the Canadian New Socialist Group. They propose greater practical cooperation between anarchists and Marxists, forming "an anti?capitalist common front." They also propose a theoretical dialogue. This may lead to eventual merger, "a synthesis of 'red' and 'black' theory and practice." They base this on the "politics of 'socialism from below'," a term raised by the Marxist Hal Draper (who was a vehement opponent of anarchism). They assert that there are "key insights" to be learned from both Marxism and anarchism, and that followers of each tradition can learn much from the other.

Marxism, they point out, centers its social and economic analysis in the workers' role in the process of production. Politically it focuses on the effort "to organize the working class to overthrow the system." Most anarchists have long agreed with this - especially, but not only, in the anarcho?syndicalist tradition. Both Marxism and anarcho?syndicalism have been criticized for downplaying other struggles, such as that of women, of oppressed races and nations, of gays and lesbians, or for ecological balance. This criticism has much truth in it, but it does not contradict the continuing importance of the class struggle.

However, the heart of Gordon and Klassen's paper is its coverage of what is usually discussed under the headings of "state" and "party." It lists as an "insight of the Marxist left...that radical activists need to form their own political organizations." This would be a relatively homogeneous organization, formed around an agreed?upon political program, as opposed to fairly heterogeneous, mass organizations, such as unions, workers' councils, or community organizations. Thus a radical organization is composed only of those who agree with its radical program, while a union is composed of everyone who works in a particular industry. This is a response to the objective reality that oppressed people come to revolutionary politics in layers, first a minority, then some more, and some more, rather than all at once. The minority which "first" comes to revolutionary politics needs to organize itself to further the process of others changing their consciousness.

This is consistent with Lenin's concept of the vanguard party, but it also fits in with the pro?organizational tendency within anarchism. That includes the early Bakuninists, the Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, the Spanish FAI with its federation of affinity groups, and the current Platformist tendency within international anarchism. The difference between the Leninist and anarchist conceptions is that Leninists centre their politics around the party (supposedly representing the real interests of the workers). The whole point of their politics is to build a centralized revolutionary party and to put it into power. Its relation to mass organizations, such as unions and workers' councils, is instrumental. Support for the mass organizations is only a method of putting the party into power.

On the other hand, the anarchist political organization exists only to promote the mass organizations. Its members may be elected to union or council positions, but it does not aim to be elected to a bourgeois parliament nor to seize power during a revolution - that is, it is not a party. As a minority, it opposes the servility of the mass, and seeks to persuade people to give up their faith in bosses and rulers. In the course of mass struggles, it openly seeks to promote self?reliance and self?organization. It consistently opposes those political tendencies which try to mislead the movements into reliance on new or old "strong leaders."

This leads the authors to praise anarchists for being "against the state....[T]he hierarchically structured capitalist state cannot be used...to liberate the working class." One long?time dispute between the anarchist and the Marxist movements has been whether to run in elections. Marx and Engels argued strongly for this; Lenin denounced the "infantile leftists" in the Communist movement who rejected electoralism. Most Marxists have agreed (except for some, such as William Morris or those "infantile leftists"). Anarchists have mostly felt that the electoral system is corrupting for any radical movement. They do not believe that it is good for people to send someone to Congress to be political "for" them. Nor have they believed that there is a "parliamentary [electoral] road to power." Considering what the Republicans did to prevent Al Gore from being elected, imagine what both Republicans and Democrats would do to prevent a radical socialist party from being elected!

The dismal histories of the Social Democratic parties and the West European Communist parties support this anarchist belief. So does the even briefer electoral history of the German Green party (which has rapidly gone from being nearly?anarchist to being lap dogs for German imperialism). What is not clear, to me anyway, is where the authors stand on this vital issue. If they reject the capitalist state as an instrument of liberation, as they say, and advocate mass direction action, then do they reject electoralism as a strategy? They do not give their position.

Furthermore, it is not enough to say that "socialists must be against the state." For a long time now, radical Marxists and others (such as nationalists) have wanted to overthrow their states. They wanted to destroy the existing bourgeois?bureaucratic?military states. But they wanted to create new states. In China, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba, revolutionaries overthrew the old states, only to set up new, state capitalist, states ? of course, calling them "Socialist" or "Communist" or "People's Democracies." In Lenin's State and Revolution, he proposed to overthrow the old, bourgeois state, and to replace it with a new, workers' and peasants' state, "a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie." It would then, by itself, "wither away." All the effort was put into creating the new state. The "withering?away" part was supposed to happen by itself. I am not saying that Lenin was a Stalinist, only pointing out that opposition to the existing state does not prevent revolutionaries from working to create new states.

Anarchists sought to replace existing states with federations of popular associations. They have sought to replace the state with methods of participatory, direct, democracy, with an armed, popular, militia instead of the regular police or army. They have advocated as little centralization and representation as is only absolutely necessary at the moment. The anarchists have been weak in seeing the importance of this communal federation serving as a center of power in opposition to the existing state. This was a major source of anarchist failure in the '30s Spanish revolution. It was recognized, too late, by the anarchist Friends of Durruti grouping. But the basic concept, of replacing the bureaucratic?military state by a federation of popular associations is correct, as against the goal of a new state.

As the authors say, "neither the Marxist tradition nor the anarchist tradition has developed a complete theory of socialist revolution." More bluntly, each has a disastrous history of failure. Anarchism has failed to make any revolutions and was marginal from the '40s to the '80s. Marxism has resulted first in pro?imperialist Social Democracy and then, after an attempt to start over by Lenin, in Stalinism, finally declining back into "private" capitalism, but leaving behind mountains of skulls and rivers of blood.

A new beginning is needed, and has already begun in the mass movement. We need to work together where we can, and clearly state our disagreements where we must.

Wayne Price was a member of the Revolutionary Socialist League, a founding member of the Love & Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, and is currently affiliated with the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho?Communists (NEFAC). NEFAC has webpages at http://flag.blackened.net/nefac (English) and http://www3.sympatico.ca/emile.henry/nefac/htm (French)