Revolutionaries (13 page)

In a word, the libertarian movements were now regarded as rapidly declining forces which no longer posed major political problems.

Was this complacency entirely justified? We may suspect that the old traditions were stronger than official communist literature suggests, at any rate within the trade union movements. Thus it is fairly clear that the transfer of the Cuban tobacco workers' union from anarcho-syndicalist to communist leadership made no substantial difference either to its trade union activities or to the attitude of its members and militants.
⁴
A good deal of research is needed to discover how far, in former strongholds of anarcho-syndicalism the subsequent communist trade union movement showed signs of the survival of old habits and practices.

Spain was virtually the only country in which anarchism continued to be a major force in the labour movement after the Great Depression, while at the same time communism was –
until the Civil War – comparatively negligible. The problem of the communist attitude to Spanish anarchism was of no international significance before the second republic, and in the period of the Popular Front and Civil War became too vast and complex for cursory treatment. I shall therefore omit discussion of it.

The fundamental attitude of the bolsheviks towards anarchists thus was that they were misguided revolutionaries, as distinct from the social democrats who were pillars of the bourgeoisie. As Zinoviev put it in 1920, in discussion with the Italians who were considerably less well disposed towards their own anarchists: ‘In times of revolution Malatesta is better than d'Aragona. They do stupid things, but they're revolutionaries. We fought side by side with the syndicalists and the anarchists against Kerensky and the Mensheviks. We mobilized thousands of workers in this way. In times of revolution one needs revolutionaries. We have to approach them and form a bloc with them in revolutionary periods.'
⁵
This comparatively lenient attitude of the bolsheviks was probably determined by two factors: the relative insignificance of anarchists in Russia, and the visible readiness of anarchists and syndicalists after the October revolution to turn to Moscow, at all events until it was clear that the terms for union were unacceptable. It was no doubt reinforced later by the rapid decline of anarchism and syndicalism, which – outside a small and diminishing number of countries – made it seem increasingly insignificant as a trend in the labour movement. ‘I have seen and talked to few anarchists in my life', said Lenin at the Third Congress of the
CI
(
Protokoll
, Hamburg, 1921, p. 510.) Anarchism had never been more than a minor or local problem for the bolsheviks. An official
CI
annual for 1922–3 illustrates this attitude. The appearance of anarchist groups in 1905 is mentioned, as is the fact that they lacked all contact with the mass
movement and were ‘as good as annihilated' by the victory of reaction. In 1917 anarchist groups appeared in all important centres of the country, but in spite of various direct action they lacked contact with the masses in most places and hardly anywhere succeeded in taking over leadership. ‘Against the bourgeois government they operated in practice as the “left”, and incidentally disorganized, wing of the Bolsheviks.' Their struggle lacked independent significance. ‘Individuals who came from the ranks of the anarchists, performed important services for the revolution; many anarchists joined the Russian
CP
.' The October revolution split them into ‘sovietist', some of whom joined the bolsheviks while others remained benevolently neutral, and ‘consequent' anarchists who rejected Soviet power, split into various and sometimes eccentric factions, and are insignificant. The various illegal anarchist groups active during the Kronstadt rising, have almost totally disappeared.
⁶
Such was the background against which the leading party of the Comintern judged the nature of the anarchist and syndicalist problem.

It need hardly be said that neither the bolsheviks nor the communist parties outside Russia were inclined to compromise their views in order to draw the libertarians towards them. Angel Pestaña, who represented the Spanish
CNT
at the Second Congress of the
CI
found himself isolated and his views rejected. The Third Congress, which discussed relations with syndicalists and anarchists at greater length, established the distance between them and the communists even more clearly, under the impact of some trends within the communist parties and what was believed to be an increase in anarchist and syndicalist influence in Italy after the occupation of the factories.
⁷
Lenin intervened on this point, observing that agreement with anarchists might be possible on objectives – i.e. the abolition of exploitation and
classes – but not on principles – i.e. ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat and the use of state power during the transitional period'.
⁸
Nevertheless, the increasingly sharp critique of anarcho-syndicalist views was combined with a positive attitude towards the movement especially in France. Even in the Fourth Congress the syndicalists were still, in France, contrasted to their advantage not only with the social democrats, but with ex-social democratic communists. ‘We have to look for quite a lot of elements for a Communist Party in the ranks of the Syndicalists, in the ranks of the best parts of the Syndicalists. This is strange but true' (Zinoviev).
⁹
Not until after the Fifth Congress – i.e. during the period of ‘bolshevization' does the negative critique of anarcho-syndicalism clearly begin to prevail over the positive appreciation of the movement – but by then it is so far merged with the critique of Trotskyism, Luxemburgism and other intra-communist deviations as to lose its specific political point.
¹⁰
By this time, of course, anarchism and syndicalism were in rapid decline, outside a few special areas.

It is therefore at first sight surprising that anti-anarchist propaganda seems to have developed on a more systematic basis within the international communist movement in the middle 1930s. This period saw the publication of the pamphlet,
Marx et Engels contre l'anarchisme
, in France (1935), in the series ‘Elements du communisme', and an obviously polemical
History of Anarchism in Russia
, by E. Yaroslavsky (English edition 1937). It may also be worth noting the distinctly more negative tone of
the references to anarchism in Stalin's
Short History of the CPSU
(b) (1938),
¹¹
compared to the account of the early 1920s, quoted above.

The most obvious reason for this revival of anti-anarchist sentiment was the situation in Spain, a country which became increasingly important in international communist strategy from 1931, and certainly from 1934. This is evident in the extended polemics of Lozovsky which are specifically aimed at the Spanish
CNT
.
¹²
However, until the Civil War the anarchist problem in Spain was considered much less urgent than the social democratic problem, especially between 1928 and the turn in Comintern policy after June-July 1934. The bulk of the references in official
CI
documents in this period concentrates, as might be expected, on the misdeeds of Spanish socialists. During the Civil War the situation changed, and it is evident that, for instance, Yaroslavsky's book is aimed primarily at Spain: ‘The workers in those countries where they now have to choose between the doctrine of the anarchists and those of the Communists should know which of the two roads of revolution to choose.'
¹³

However, perhaps another – though perhaps relatively minor – element in the revived anti-anarchist polemics should also be
noted. It is evident both from the basic text which is constantly quoted and reprinted – Stalin's critique of Bukharin's alleged semi-anarchism, made in 1929 – and from other references, that anarchizing tendencies are condemned primarily because they ‘repudiate the state in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism' (Stalin). The classical critique of anarchism by Marx, Engels and Lenin, tends to be identified with the defence of the tendencies of state development in the stalinist period.

To sum up:

The bolshevik hostility to anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism as a theory, strategy or form of organized movement was clear and unwavering, and all ‘deviations' within the communist movement in this direction were firmly rejected. For practical purposes such ‘deviations' or what could be regarded as such, ceased to be of significance in and outside Russia from the early 1920s.

The bolshevik attitude to the actual anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements was surprisingly benevolent. It was determined by three main factors:

(
a
) the belief that the bulk of anarcho-syndicalist workers were revolutionaries, and both objective and, given the right circumstances, subjective allies of communism against social democracy, and potential communist;

(
b
) the undoubted attraction which the October revolution exercised on many syndicalists and even anarchists in the years immediately following 1917;

(
c
) the equally unquestioned and increasingly rapid decline of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism as a mass movement in all but a very few of its old centres.

For the reasons mentioned above, the bolsheviks devoted little attention to the problem of anarchism outside the few areas in which it retained its strength (and, in so far as the local communist parties were weak, not much even within those
areas) after the early 1920s. However, the rise to international significance of Spain, and perhaps also the attempt to give a theoretical legitimation to the stalinist development of a dictatorial and terrorist state, led to a revival of anti-anarchist polemics in the period between the Great Slump and the end of the Spanish Civil War.

¹
Of a small random sample of French communist
MPS
between the wars, the
Dictionnaire des Parlementaires Français 1889–1940
, gives the following indications about their pre-communist past: Socialist 5; ‘Sillon', then socialist 1; trade union activity (tendency unknown) 3; libertarian 1; no pre-communist past 1.

²
Bolshevising the Communist International
, London, 1925.

³
‘The growth of discontent among the masses and of their resistance to the attacks of the ruling classes and of imperialism have sharpened the process of disintegration among socialist, anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist organizations. In the most recent period the recognition of the need for a united front with the communists has sunk quite deep roots among rather wide strata of their rank and file. At the same time the tendency for a direct entry into the ranks of the revolutionary unions and communist parties has grown stronger (especially in Cuba, Brazil, Paraguay). After the sixth World Congress there has been a marked drop in the specific weight of anarcho-syndicalism within the labour movements of South and Caribbean America. In some countries the best elements of the anarcho-syndicalist movement have joined the Communist Party, e.g. in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Cuba [ . . . ]. In other countries the weakening of anarcho-syndicalist influence was accompanied by a strengthening of socialist and reformist organizations (Argentina), the “national-reformist parties” (Mexico, Cuba)':
Die Kommunistische Internationale vor dem 7. Weltkongress
, p. 472.

⁴
I owe this point to Miss Jean Stubbs, who is preparing a doctoral thesis on the Cuban tobacco workers.

⁵
P.Spriano,
Storia del Partito Comunista Italiano
, vol. 1, p. 77.

⁶
‘Jahrbuch für Wirschaft, Politik und Arbeiterbewegung' (Hamburg), 1922–3, pp. 247, 250, 481–2.

⁷
Decisions of the Third Congress of the Communist International
, London, 1921, p. 10.

⁸
Protokoll
, p. 510.

⁹
Fourth Congress of the Communist International. Abridged Report
. London, 1923 p. 18.

¹⁰
Cf. Manuilsky: ‘We think, for instance, that so-called Trotskyism has a great deal in common with individualistic Proudhonism [ . . . ] It is not by accident that Rosmer and Monatte, in their new organ directed against the Communist Party, resuscitate theoretically the ideas of the old revolutionary syndicalism, mixed with a defence of Russian Trotskyism':
The Communist International
, English edition, no. 10, new series, p. 58.

¹¹
‘As to the Anarchists, a group whose influence was insignificant to start with, they now definitely disintegrated into minute groups, some of which merged with criminal elements, thieves and provocateurs, the dregs of society; others became expropriators “by conviction”, robbing the peasants and small townsfolk, and appropriating the premises and funds of workers' clubs; while others still openly went over to the camp of the counter-revolutionaries, and devoted themselves to feathering their own nests as menials of the bourgeoisie. They were all opposed to authority of any kind, particularly and especially to the revolutionary authority of the workers and peasants, for they knew that a revolutionary government would not allow them to rob the people and steal public property', p. 203.

¹²
A. Lozovsky,
Marx and the Trade Unions
, London, 1935 (first edn. 1933), pp. 35–6 and especially pp. 146–54.

¹³
Op. cit
., p. 10.

The Iberian peninsula has problems but no solutions, a state of affairs which is common or even normal in the ‘third world', but extremely rare in Europe. For better or worse most states on our continent have a stable and potentially permanent economic and social structure, an established line of development. The problems of almost all of Europe, serious and even fundamental though they may be, arise out of the solution of earlier ones. In western and northern Europe they arose mainly on the basis of successful capitalist development, in eastern Europe (much of which was in a situation analogous to Spain until 1945) on the basis of a soviet-type socialism. In neither case do the basic economic and social patterns look provisional, as, for instance, the patterns of national relations within and between states still so often appear to be. Belgian capitalism or Yugoslav socialism may well change, perhaps fundamentally; but both are obviously far less likely to collapse at slight provocation than the complex
ad hoc
administrative formulae for ensuring the coexistence of Flemings and Walloons, or of various mutually suspicious Balkan nationalities.