Between Anarchism and Marxism
the beginnings and ends of the schism …

Abstract

This paper analyses the development of the schism between Marxism and anarchism and explores two distinct methodological approaches to investigating these apparently discrete ideologies: one is derived from analytic political philosophy; the other is an adaptation of Michael Freeden’s conceptual approach. The former views the division between Marxism and anarchism as the result of a clear distinction in universal principles, an account that is found to be flawed. Using the alternative conceptual approach, this paper argues that the schism that marked the relationship between anarchism and Marxism during the ‘short twentieth century’ was primarily the result of the primacy Marxism gave to the Leninist centralized structure following the Bolshevik revolution. The revolutionary party was able to impose a more tightly controlled interpretation of socialist principles, which marginalized and excluded rival socialist constructions. With the decline of Leninist structures, constellations of Marxism have arisen that, once again, actively engage with anarchism.

1 Introduction

This paper examines the development of the schism between Marxism and anarchism, which characterized the relationship between the two ideologies during the ‘short twentieth century’[1] (to borrow Eric Hobsbawm’s phrase for the period 1914–1991). In addition, it looks at the development of collaborative interactions between anarchism and Marxism in the subsequent 20 years, which parallel a more mutually productive and fluid interaction before the Russian Revolution.

In analysing the development of the schism, this paper explores two distinctive methodological approaches to investigating these apparently separate ideologies: one method is derived from analytic political philosophy, whilst the other is based on Michael Freeden’s conceptual approach.[2]^,[3] This is done in order to show that, contrary to some standard analytic approaches, anarchism and Marxism are not wholly incompatible, and there are ideological constellations of anarchism and Marxism that allow for significant productive and mutually supporting collaborations based on shared meanings. Standard analytic[4] philosophical (and analytic political theoretical) methods tend, with a few exceptions, to make the assumption of an unequivocal difference between anarchism and Marxism, with the former based on an explicit rejection of the state, whilst the latter, following Friedrich Engels, regards the state as playing a pivotal social emancipatory role.[5] Such analytic approaches tend to lead to the conclusion that any substantive coalitions between Marxists and anarchists are unstable, pragmatic responses, or based upon failures of principle, or brought about by coercion or confusion.

Freeden’s conceptual approach, I shall argue, is a more constructive method to investigate and assess ideologies. His method involves identifying not just the main principles but also the adjacent and peripheral ones, and ascertaining their underlying structure, by which the different concepts mutually define each other. Further, this method takes into account the role of resources, institutions or media by which such principles are expressed. For instance, a slogan promoting racial division has a different set of resonances if it appears on a bigoted individual’s web-blog, than if it appears on multiple street hoardings or as part of a discussion in a respected mainstream political media.[6] Though the statement in each uses identical terms, and might be interpreted by an audience in similar fashion, the impact on their behaviour would be different.

Through conceptual analysis, which sees ideologies as structured collections of principles that alter over time, this paper will show that there are forms of Marxism that historically (and more contemporarily) share similar conceptual structures to those of particular families of anarchism. It also explains how and why major forms of Marxism altered and became incompatible with, and hostile to, anarchism for most of the ‘short twentieth century.’ The paper argues that it was the adoption of the dominant hierarchical party, following the perceived success of the Russian Revolution, as the pivotal institution for expressing and employing Marxist principles that changed this ideology. Whilst the relationship between anarchists and Marxists had been impacted by earlier attempts at centralized, disciplined representative parties, especially in the late 1880s, these had not the impact or permanence of the development of Leninist Communist Parties, as the earlier groupings had neither the resources nor the social esteem of the latter.

The Communist Party was able to impose a set of restrictive interpretations on Marxism, ones that were pro-state and largely consequentialist. This disciplined, highly structured organization was able to construct interpretations of other socialisms, such that these alternatives were viewed not as potential partners but as, at best, misguided or confused and in need of party leadership or, at worst, anti-socialist (and counter-revolutionary). Similarly, ‘Marxism’ was reduced to a severely restricted set of interpretations by anarchists. This developed into a clear cleavage between the two, in which the one defined itself against the other. The paper concludes that as the party has declined as the main organizational form for expressing Marxist principles, the divisions between anarchists and Marxists have subsequently diminished, leading to greater mutual support and the possibility of future fruitful collaborations.

That conclusion stands in contrast to accounts from Marxists, anarchists (and not formally aligned ones), which describe the great division occurring with the split in the First International between Marx and Bakunin.[7] As the anarchist George Woodcock put it: ‘It was in the conflict between Bakunin and Marx within the First International that the irreconcilable differences between the libertarian and authoritarian conceptions of socialism were first developed.’[8] American Marxist scholar Paul Thomas also argues that the engagement with, and conflict within, the International performed the ‘double service’ of creating ‘what we today know as Marxism [… and] creat[ing] Bakuninism and by extension, to bring into being anarchism as a social revolutionary social movement.’[9] For Thomas and Woodcock, the pre-existing personal and doctrinal antagonisms between Marx and Bakunin solidified the division between Marxists and anarchists. As Thomas explains, it allowed later activists to read into the conflict, in a ‘variant of post hoc propter hoc’ (the fallacy of assuming that a later event must have been caused by a preceding one), the rightness of their hostility towards the other. This post hoc reading was itself exacerbated by the Party form. Victor Serge, for instance, in his impassioned call for his former anarchist comrades to support the Bolshevik-led ‘dictatorship of the proletariat,’ suggests that his former libertarian comrades are repeating the mistake of the ‘Jura Federation.’[10] The Jura Federation were the Swiss Bakuninist section of First International who, for Serge, made the error of privileging decentralized power over the need for an efficient, egalitarian central administration. Contemporary Leninists, whilst condemning the post hoc readings of Stalinism into Marxism, also refer back to the First International as being the basis for the split between Marxism and anarchism.[11]

Whilst the conflict and schism within the International Workingmen’s Association undoubtedly helped to identify distinctions within the broader socialist movements, just as the debates between Proudhon and Marx had done earlier, this division was far less decisive and stable than usually presented. The totemic importance of the First International was constructed after the event, with the rise of the Communist Party. As discussed later, there were substantial collaborations and non-sectarian groupings in which members would identify themselves as ‘anarchist,’ ‘communist’ and ‘socialist’ interchangeably.

2 Standard disciplinary approaches

The analytic tradition, as Mark Philp points out, is a rich and diverse one. It includes figures such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Quentin Skinner (who uses the ideas of other analytic philosophers like W. V. O. Quine and J. L. Austin), who make similar criticisms of analytic political philosophy to those made here: namely, that it is misguided to attempt to find ahistorical and universal, decontested concepts.[12] However, more standardly, as Daniel McDermott[13] and Philip Pettit[14] explain, analytic political philosophy can be identified through its methodology and underlying ontological assumptions:

What distinguishes the enterprise as analytical? This label is often applied to draw a contrast with other styles of philosophy, such as Continental and Eastern. It is also typically associated with certain features, such as clarity, systematic rigour, narrowness of focus, and an emphasis on the importance of reason. There are a number of different ways to characterize it, but probably the best is that analytical political philosophy is an approach to gaining knowledge that falls into the same broad category as a science.[15]

McDermott’s description covers similar features to those identified by Pettit in his criteria of analytical political philosophy: (1) knowledge exists independently of human consciousness, (2) rational investigation will discover it, and (3) these facts are independent of values.[16] So through using a universal account of reason, it is possible to discover non-ideological principles to identify and assess political traditions (even if because of resource shortages they cannot be applied in the same way universally).[17]

This account of political philosophy is endorsed by the anarchist analytic philosopher Paul McLaughlin. He argues that his discipline is marked by the ‘argumentative process’ and ‘the quest for conceptual clarity.’[18]^,[19] Thus, the analytic tradition emphasizes assessing the validity of arguments, which in turn require an uncontested definitional foundation. By fixing the meaning of terms, it becomes possible to demarcate clearly one political position from another. For example, it is possible to distinguish Robert Nozick’s minimal state liberalism (propertarianism)[20] from John Rawls’ liberalism by clarifying and thereby distinguishing their concepts of ‘right’ and ‘liberty.’

Analytical political theorists have tended to identify a key pivotal text or area of disputation that marks the unequivocal cleavage between the rival theories. Thus, insightful texts, such as those by Alan Carter,[21] Thomas[22] and McLaughlin,[23] explore the various conflicts between Marx and the major classical anarchist thinkers with whom he explicitly engaged: Joseph-Pierre Proudhon, Max Stirner and especially Michael Bakunin. In the standard analytical approach, once the differences between the rival theories are clarified, they are assessed on the basis of their philosophical coherence, logical consistency and morality.

A problem with the analytical approach is that it concentrates its research on logically rigorous texts and dismisses out-of-hand communicative forms that appear to differ, thereby producing a much restricted canon. Many anarchist texts might assume premises about, for example, the undesirability of capitalism, or the deficiency of single party rule, or the necessity of particular forms of contestation of racism or sexism. These unstated premises (enthymemes) shared by the audience for anarchist periodicals would not be easily identifiable by many academic philosophers, to whom the arguments would therefore appear instantly invalid and perhaps incomprehensible. As such they would not be considered pertinent material to be subjected to the rigours of analytical philosophical analysis.[24]

Philosophers tend to respond in one of two ways to this difficulty to appreciate adequately the radically different contexts in which activist texts operate. One, hinted at by Miller,[25] but made more explicit by Dudley Knowles[26] and McLaughlin,[27] dismisses the texts generated by historical movements of anarchism as being too diverse, inchoate and illogical for them to be worthy of philosophical examination. This is in contrast, according to Miller, to Marxisms, which although diverse are sufficiently coherent enough to ‘share a number of central assumptions.’[28]

The second approach, following on from this dismissal of the historical movements, is to construct a separate ‘anarchism’ based on philosophically rigorous grounds. The philosophical version identifies a core principle, one that distinguishes anarchism from Marxism. This central principle is an absolute rejection of the state.[29] The state is described solely as a unified coercive apparatus operating over a specific geographical area.[30] Carter,[31] for instance, whose analytical anarchism is based on G. A. Cohen’s anaemic version of Marxism,[32] claims that Marxists regard the state as an impartial by-product of economic-technological determining forces, whilst anarchists regard the state as a historically acting agency incompatible with egalitarian goals.

An alternative, first principle of anarchism is suggested by the Hellenic scholar David Keyt. His version of anarchism sees the rejection of the state as a consequence of a more primary principle: the absolute respect for the negative freedom of the individual, sometimes expressed as the absolute prohibition on coercion,[33] based on the absolute sovereignty of the rational individual.[34] This account is also the basis of Robert Paul Wolff’s pivotal account of philosophical anarchism, In Defense of Anarchism,[35] and is supported by Andrew John Simmons.[36]

‘Philosophical anarchism’ is identified with a single, universal feature: a complete rejection of coercion. Within ‘philosophical anarchism,’ the main debates are whether the absolute primacy given to autonomy necessarily leads to advocacy of private property rights, such as that proposed by propertarians (such as David Friedman and Murray Rothbard) or whether it leads to a rejection of, or at least ambivalence towards, property rights (for instance, McLaughlin[37] and Peter Vallentyne et al.[38]). The second area of debate, also found principally, but not solely, amongst the propertarians, is whether a minimal or ultra-minimal state can be generated that meets the voluntarist criteria.

In the first case, anarchism is distinguished from Marxism on the grounds that the latter has identifiable principles, whilst anarchism is little more than irrational violence. Under the second interpretation, Marxism and anarchism are clearly distinct as the first is concerned with laws of historical development, economic equality and the use of state power, whilst the latter is identified with absolute autonomy and therefore a rejection of state power.[39]^,[40] However, if Marxism and anarchism are so distinct, then the significant collaborations and intersections between Marxists and anarchists, especially before the 1917 Revolution, are hard for analytical philosophers to explain.

Examples of such collaborations include joint propaganda tours between the anarchist Alarm with the Marxist-influenced Independent Labour Party, Social Democratic Federation (SDF) and Fabian Societies[41] and the regular meetings and debates between the anarchists and the SDF that were ‘carried out in a very friendly spirit.’[42] Wilf McCartney,[43] born in 1877, and George Cores,[44] born in 1869, were active in radical movements over a century ago. In their memoirs, they describe the fluid way people drifted between avowedly Marxist and anarchist movements, often utilizing the terms ‘anarchist,’ ‘communist’ and ‘socialist’ interchangeably. Marx and Bakunin highlighted the theoretical differences between them, as later, have scholars and many activists,[45] yet it was the similarities between Marx and Bakunin that inspired many radicals. Mike Lipman reports that his parents, who were immigrant revolutionaries, had portraits of both Marx and Bakunin displayed in their home.[46] Similarly, publishers associated with radical movements published both Kropotkin and Marx as ‘ammunition for socialism.’[47]

From an analytical philosophical perspective, if overt manipulation and the use of force are ruled out, such intersections can only be due to conceptual confusion or failure of principle or will (akrásia). Such a perspective fails to explain why Marxists and anarchists, having acted in solidarity despite some conceptual differences, became systematically opposed, before particular sections once again found significant common ground. An analysis based upon (but modified slightly from) Freeden’s conceptual approach is better able to deal with distinctive but identifiable variants of each ideology, and explain why, historically, there has been consistent and effective interaction between the supposedly rival ideologies.

3 Freeden’s ideological approach

Instead of seeking to identify fixed, necessary and sufficient conditions, refined over time as concepts become more finely honed, Freeden argues that ideologies are best understood in terms of the structure of their core, adjacent and peripheral concepts. Political concepts are the basic, central unit of Freeden’s analysis. They are expressed through and constituted by words or other signs.[48] They are linked together in particular structures, and concepts gain their meaning by their relationships to other concepts. Adjacent concepts flesh out and clarify the interpretations of core ones, restricting the possibility of competing interpretations.[49]

To give an example from Freeden,[50] John Stuart Mill’s liberalism contains the core concept of liberty, but it is also positioned next to the individual and a specific type of individual in particular (one who has sovereignty over his/her body and mind). Mill’s liberalism combines these elements so that the concept of liberty refers to, and relies on, the individual not the social. Liberty also includes the desired attributes of the individual, such as the development of character. Therefore, all three core features appear in Mills’ key account of liberty as ‘the free development of individuality.’ Thus, it is not a matter of one concept taking priority over the others, but of each being defined by, and through, the others. So if, by contrast, the concept of liberty and the core goal of self-development were placed next to a different core principle—that of equality—then our understanding of liberty would be altered.

Because concepts interlock, they cannot be disentangled and assessed as free-standing, discrete entities without losing meaning. For instance, in liberalism democracy carries with it concepts of equality (one person, one vote) and liberty (self-rule); they cannot be disentangled as discrete concepts as they help constitute the meaning of democracy.[51] Within the family of an ideology, one variant might have a different structure or morphology, which places greater emphasis or priority on particular concepts.[52] Almost all liberalisms contain notions of property rights, but Nozickian and Rothbardian propertarians give them a fundamental privileged position,[53] whilst other liberalisms tailor them against other principles of equality, welfare or democracy.

Different types of liberalism will have different structures by which the core, adjacent and peripheral concepts define each other.[54] Core principles are stable, but in certain locations, one can be absent, and yet an ideology can still be recognizable and function as such an ideology. However, the absence of more than one core feature is likely to alter an ideological structure fundamentally.[55]

Peripheral concepts are those that are either not central to the overall shape of the ideology, but are nonetheless persistent features,[56] or whose importance shifts depending on historical period and/or geography.[57] Some peripheral concepts move from margin to core, such as the commitment to representative democracy in conservatism, or from core to the periphery, such as population control in ecologism. Others can alternate between core and periphery over time, such as the principle of street violence in fascism. Peripheral concepts become more detailed and central in particular contexts. They help to flesh out the meanings of core principles, by directing their interpretation. Freeden’s example is how ‘refugee rights,’ a largely peripheral concept in liberalism, help to clarify the meaning of liberty in particular cultural and historical contexts.[58]

Ideologies are not discrete and closed, but permeable;[59] they intersect with other ideologies, and as they compete and clash new concepts will arise, which might be added to or excluded from the ideology. The social historian Peter Linebaugh, in relation to the development of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary political theory, highlights that when concepts first arise in particular historical or cultural contexts they often do so as a result of previous ideological conflicts.[60] At their initial development stage, their meanings and their relationship to other concepts are still ‘in the gristle,’ still nascent, and either un- or under-recognized within ideological families. New concepts are often either fluidly applied, or become temporarily affixed to concepts that later are unsustainable. Ideologies are therefore constantly evolving and changing, rather than fixed sets of principles.

4 Modification of the conceptual approach

A few adaptations are made to Freeden’s conceptual approach. For instance, whilst Freeden identifies political philosophy solely with the Anglo-American analytical approach, and thus with a commitment to a universal logos or reason,[61] the modification here uses contributions of philosophical schools that are critical of these liberal Enlightenment presuppositions, such as Alasdair MacIntyre’s work.[62]^,[63] The first adaptation accords greater emphasis to the role of resources such as institutions and media; the second gives greater priority to ethical principles as key features of ideological practices.

Freeden indicates that different ideologies operate through different forms of institutional practice. For instance, some ideologies, like radical forms of socialism and anarchism, plus certain constellations of feminism and environmentalism, are capable of operating in and through the apparatus of public protest, whilst others, like conservatism, are largely antipathetic towards public demonstration.[64] Similarly, many contemporary ideologies operate through the institution of the democratic-political party,[65] whilst other ideologies, like anarchism, oppose them. As MacIntyre explains, institutions are collections of linked individual practices. Practices are made up out of resources that operate according to particular structure of evolving norms,[66] and engage particular types of agent representative,[67] to produce particular types of internal and external good,[68] and certain types of reasoning.[69] Thus, the slight difference between Freeden’s conceptual approach and the analysis offered here is the greater emphasis on resources, and how they impact on the structure of concepts and principles and their ability (or otherwise) to intersect with other ideological structures and practices.

Apparently identical principles will have a different structure and therefore a distinctive set of interpretations dependent on the different media or organizational arrangement through which they are expressed. For instance, egalitarian environmental principles will be interpreted differently if they are expressed through the format of an open-access eco-camp, than if they are expressed textually in a glossy periodical emanating from a professional charitable organization. Strong centralized institutions can impose and restrict conceptual arrangements to ensure greater uniformity of interpretation. Considerable resources are spent on attempting to decontest and unify apparently conflicting or ambiguous conceptual arrangements.[70]

The second adaption is to consider ethical values to be a core feature of ideologies, necessary for their function, and their self-assessment and critical evaluation from adjacent or rival ideologies. Freeden tends to view moral values as necessarily real universals. For instance, Freeden associates ethical analysis with the search for decontested universal principles of orthodox political philosophy.[71] However, as MacIntyre’s practice-based virtue ethics indicates, goods (virtues) construct and are constructed by persistent social practices, but are not universal and can change over time. For instance, the internal goods of playing chess (patience, theoretical wisdom and sportsmanship) are not structured in the same way in competitive white-water rafting: there will still be patience and proper competitive respect, but bravery, teamwork and practical wisdom might be more to the fore. Similarly, the ethical values inherent in political practices alter, according to the context. The values inherent in organizing a workplace syndicate are different to, but consistent with, the values of occupying unused land to turn it into a communal garden. The development of these practices, and the ways they intersect, helps form a tradition.

5 Application to Marxism and anarchism

There is no denying that anarchism and Marxism have in the (post-)industrialized West broadly different histories, canons and resources. Indeed, for a significant section of the 20^th century, anarchism, and to a noticeable but lesser extent Marxism, defined themselves against the other. For instance, Guy Aldred’s Glasgow anarchist group[72] contrasts the anti-hierarchical methods of anarchism with the tyrannical practices of state socialism. Similarly, the libertarian Solidarity group in their pamphlet, As We Don’t See It, defined its socialist ideas in direct contrast to the socialisms of social-democracy and especially the repressive, hierarchical tyrannies of state socialism, personified by Lenin.[73] Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the continuing totemic influence of state-socialism was so great that anarchists still felt they needed to dedicate significant resources to distinguishing their politics from those of the orthodox Marxist left.[74]

In his extensive analysis of socialisms, Freeden makes few explicit mentions of anarchisms, though he does make passing mention to Bakunin, William Godwin and Stirner as part of the challenge to liberal conceptions of freedom.[75] Freeden regards anarchism as straddling ideological categories. For Freeden, the rival anarchist traditions—individualist and social—are so distinct that it ‘may be mistaken to lump the two schools […] under one roof, or family.’[76] Agreeing with Freeden, this paper largely concentrates on just the social (sometimes referred to as the ‘class struggle’) current of libertarianism, though it largely identifies different core values from Freeden. Miller, too, resolves the problem of the apparent lack of shared values by suggesting multiple anarchisms.[77] However, Miller proposes that all anarchisms share a commitment to a rejection of coercion (without reference to the adjacent principle of contesting hierarchy). As a result, this leads to a reductively liberal reading of communist anarchism.[78]

Freeden proposes that there are three concepts that identify anarchism:

[F]irst—indicated in the name of this ideational cluster—antagonism to power, culminating in the desire to annihilate it (power is decontested as centralized and hierarchical and manifested above all, though not exclusively, in the state); second, a belief in liberty, decontested as spontaneous voluntarism; third, the postulation of natural human harmony.[79]

Although this is an accurate summary of typical academic accounts of anarchism, these are not core features of most social anarchisms. Anarchists are not against all power: indeed, they recognize that power can be constructive and non-hierarchical. Similarly, many main anarchist groups do not hold that all liberty is spontaneous, instead viewing it as sometimes premeditated and requiring co-ordination (hence they construct institutions like social centres and formal groupings such as syndicates).

The third core principle is another that is frequently associated with anarchism,[80] but it is highly contentious. Whilst there are some anarchists who view people as ‘inherent[ly] creative’ and essentially ‘critical,’[81] and who predicate their political analysis on the belief in a shared common ‘humanity’ that is antipathetic to capitalism,[82] this essentialism is neither common nor core to anarchism. Indeed, the quotation from Kropotkin used by Jonathan Wolff to support the contention that anarchism rests on a benign essentialism actually states the opposite: ‘No more laws! No more judges! Liberty, equality and practical human sympathy are the only effective barriers we can oppose to the anti-social instincts of certain amongst us.’[83] Kropotkin is clear that humans have both social and anti-social instincts. Kropotkin, as made clear in his Ethics,[84] argues only that the people have the capacity to act benevolently, as opposed to the malign essentialism of certain social Darwinists that were prominent in Kropotkin’s time. McLaughlin, too, demonstrates that the essentialism ascribed to Bakunin is down to fundamentally flawed scholarship.[85]

Instead, a different set of core principles for anarchism can be identified: contesting hierarchies of power, anti-mediation and privileging prefigurative methods. These are relatively stable and can be found in anarchist accounts of their tactics. The first core principle can be found in anarchists’ consistent rejection of the state and quasi-state institutions, their opposition to capitalism as a hierarchical social relationship and confronting power relations based on gender or ethnic prejudice. The second is evident in anarchists’ rejection of representative democracy and privileging of direct action by the oppressed themselves. The third core concept, prefiguration, involves the means being consistent with the goals. It is summed up in the rationale for rejecting the party structure that was to become associated with Marxism, advanced by James Guillaume, a colleague of Bakunin: ‘How could one want an equalitarian and free society to issue from authoritarian organization? It is impossible.’[86] Prefiguration stresses that methods that contest or avoid hierarchies of power also create, in the here and now, accessible social goods.

The rejection of the state that is a core feature of the rejection of hierarchy (and embodies elements of anti-mediation and prefiguration) is not, contrary to analytical descriptions, a universal feature of anarchism. There have been occasions when rejecting the state was pushed from the core to a more intermediate position. For instance, during the Spanish Civil War many anarchists chose provisionally to support the social democratic government when confronted with the even greater hierarchical threat of Franco’s fascism. Similarly, it is not inconsistent for libertarians, such as Noam Chomsky, to support state welfare or health services, where the alternative is the greater hierarchies and oppressions of unmediated capitalism.[87] Conversely, in the face of state-capitalist domination, such as in the former Soviet Union, the dominance of the bureaucrats might be constrained and a more equitable distribution of goods might occur, with the support of a black market, thereby pushing the rejection of capitalism to a more peripheral position.

These core anarchist concepts are: anti-hierarchy, which has closely related principles of negative appraisal of the state and capitalism; anti-mediation, which relies on a social view of the self as an active agent that does not require representation by others; and prefiguration, meaning that the means are in accordance with, or a synecdoche, of the goals. These central principles are not identical with the core concepts of socialism, identified by Freeden, but can be compatible with them. The socialist principles are: ‘The constitutive nature of human relationships, human welfare as a desirable objective, human nature as active, equality, and history as the arena of (ultimately) beneficial change.’[88] The issue of how these principles were derived (in terms of selection of the ‘socialist’ canon) and whether different or modified alternative concepts might be more suitable is a topic worthy of debate, although not one that can be entered into here.

What is clear is that whilst there are differences, there is also significant overlap between these broadly drawn socialist principles and those of anarchism. An instance of this would be in the social account of the individual, which Freeden illustrates with reference to Marx’s Grundrisse.[89] Like anarchists, Marxists see individuals as gaining their sense of self, and being able to produce and enjoy goods, through their interactions with others. Similarly, there are within Marx explicit suggestions of the same commitment to prefiguration that is found within anarchism. Marx describes Communism not in a consequentialist manner but as an inherent part of the process of its realization.

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality {will} have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the now existing premise.[90]^,[91]

In institutions that are open to collaboration, these similarities, such as a social, fluid view of the self and prefiguration, are highlighted and privileged. When institutions wish to maintain control and thereby limit the influence of other practices, these constraining institutions emphasize their difference, making the areas of demarcation into unbreakable, universal principles. Constellations of anarchism and Marxism that privilege the shared concepts as core relegate differences to the periphery and thus allow interpretations that promote sympathetic readings of the adjacent ideologies. In these circumstances, they are likely to construct productive alliances.[92]

6 Collaborative radicalism: 1880–1917

There were, as already indicated, considerable similarities between British anarchists and Marxists, in their interpretations of key goals, which allowed for significant co-operation and interchange. This is not to deny that there were constellations of Marxism and anarchism, even in the pre-revolutionary period, that were largely antagonistic to each other. Before the infamous split in the First International, there was hostility between some Marxist groups and anarchists, for instance in the divisions between Proudhon and his followers and Marx. More significantly, there were major conflicts between the two ideologies over whether groups should engage in representative democracy. The split within Jewish immigrant radical movements, in particular the setting up of Der Arbeiter Fraint (The Workers’ Friend)—which would later become explicitly anarchist and be edited by the anarchosyndicalist Rudolf Rocker—and Der Polishe Yidl (The Polish Jew), was partly over the latter’s support for parliamentary candidates.[93] Representationalism aimed at providing a voice for the oppressed within the structures of the state is associated with Marxism, and rejected by anarchists because it produces a new hierarchy of the powerful representer and the denuded represented.[94]

The privileged role of the party, before the rise of Leninist orthodoxy within Marxism, was a major constraint on anarchist and Marxist co-operation. Kropotkin, in a 1907 edition of his group’s newspaper Freedom, explains how splits occurred in the wider labour movement as a result of the development of parliamentary parties. In 1887, the Marxist-influenced Social Democrats were interpreting their principles as being largely consistently with anarchism:

[W]e held meetings in favour of our condemned Chicago Anarchist brothers, the Social Democratic speakers by our side used the same language as we did. They did the same at our Commune celebrations [… however there was a] striking and a sudden change.[95]

This change from co-operative interaction to mutual rivalry followed further successful partnerships in organizing strikes. The successful industrial actions were initially interpreted in the same way by Marxists and anarchists: that the economically oppressed were capable of organizing and running their own institutions that could challenge the power of the dominant class and produce their own social goods.[96] However, some socialists from within the avowedly Marxist SDF viewed the rise of socialist ideas in the area of London’s docks as requiring greater disciplined leadership, which in turn needed a parliamentary party. This new party, whilst still adopting some core socialist principles concerning equality of distribution, did so within a structure predicated on maintaining and supporting a party hierarchy and respect for the apparatuses of the law.[97] It sought to restructure the principles of socialism to make them amenable to liberal, electoral opinion, rather than to radical, anti-hierarchical groupings. As a result, the socialist principle of equality became closely associated with paternalistic welfare, rather than being tied to principles of autonomy as represented by direct action. The parliamentary socialists from the SDF began rejecting workers’ self-organization in favour of a historical continuation of constitutional action. Such a reorganization of principles within the medium of the parliamentary party ended up, laments Kropotkin, in the breaking of the autonomous labour movement and the disintegration of the campaign for an eight-hour working day.[98]

However, the parliamentary turn within the SDF that led to a division between Marxists and anarchists was more permeable and temporary than in the aftermath of 1917. This is because the SDF did not have the resources to dominate the radical left as the Communist Party was able to do later. Also, the SDF was not unified in undertaking this organizational change: many sections of the SDF were ambiguous about, and some rejected, the parliamentary route. In addition, there were also many rival Marxist groupings of comparative influence who continued to prioritize co-ordinated direct efforts with anarchists and others over labour organizing and defending immigrants rather than constitutional roles.[99] Thus, there was no single body capable of imposing a singular structure of socialist concepts. ‘Socialism’ therefore remained a sufficiently fluid constellation of principles, many forms of which continued to be highly compatible with anarchism.

Leaving to one side the individualist sections of anarchism, like The Egoist (which was opposed to socialism from Marxist and anarchist groupings alike),[100] there was still significant co-operation between Marxists and anarchists even after the split in the SDF. A handbill produced in English by the Worker’s Friend (Der Arbeiter Fraint) for a meeting against the Tsarist persecution of Jews in Russia included anarchists like Kropotkin, Marx’s daughter Eleanor, as well as parliamentarians and aspirant representatives like C.T. Ritchie, Cunninghame Graham and John Burns.[101] This illustrated that, whilst some of the parliamentary socialists were hoping to draw support for their campaigns, others hoped to attract those primarily concerned with constitutional activity into non-mediated action. On other occasions, shared opposition to constitutionalism provided a basis for convivial meeting and campaigning between Marxists and anarchists. There were, for instance, continued attempts, as Freedom reports, at industrial unionism between the various anti-parliamentary socialist movements throughout the first decade of the 20^th century.[102]

Up until the Russian Revolution and even into the early years after the Revolution, many anarchists and Marxists were often engaged in mutually supportive initiatives. Freedom, for example, approvingly quoted Trotsky, who a few years later would be blamed for the Kronstadt massacre and other oppressions.[103] In 1917, the Bolshevik leadership was praised for the way the post-revolutionary state had ended Russia’s involvement in the First World War, and for instigating methods that ‘exactly coincide with that pursued by anarchists.’[104] However, the apparent success of Lenin’s strategy in encouraging revolutionary action meant that his model of political organizing was taken as the key organizational strategy. The strong internal party discipline that had clear, decontested political messages, that directed all activity towards a clear set of mutually supportive strategic goals, and that maintained the revolutionary state in Russia in order to foment similar revolutions elsewhere impacted on the ideological construction of Marxism.[105]

7 Development of the schism: 1917–1991

The party become central to Marxism and it became the medium by which ideas were expressed. This resulted in a shift in Marxism’s constellation of concepts and the emphasis each was given. With the prestige of the revolution, and Lenin’s leadership, his interpretation of socialism, based on the role of the state as a mediator to bring about equality and welfare, became increasingly privileged. Alternative interpretations, including those of anarchism, became marginalized and rejected. This development can be identified in the British Socialist Party (BSP) periodical The Call, which was amalgamated into The Communist, Britain’s first Communist Party newspaper, on the BSP’s merger with Socialist Labour Party and the South Wales Socialist Society in 1920.

In 1916, The Call was critical of the attacks on individual freedom and inequalities of the war, and rejected the hierarchies associated with the nation state.[106] It spoke favourably of other socialist groups who shared similar values,[107] reporting strikes and rent disputes that were largely autonomous and publicized rallies by other socialist groups like the ILP and Women’s Suffrage Federation (later to become Workers’ Socialist Federation, which would join and then quickly split from the Communist Party).[108] It also promoted revolutionary syndicalism, a tactic associated with anarchism[109] and just before the ‘Second Russian Revolution’ it regarded state socialism as being no different to ‘state capitalism.’[110] However, after the October Revolution, the paper adopted a single strategy and underlying concepts, that of the apparently successful Bolsheviks:

The Bolsheviks have shown what Socialists, true to their principles and adverse from all compromises can do, and gradually they are gaining the adherence of the entire people of Russia as well as the working class throughout the world.[111]

After the Bolshevik revolution, the goal was to replicate Lenin’s organizational methods and adopt his analysis: ‘Russia may be different from Great Britain, but the yoke which weighs upon the neck of the working class is exactly the same, and the method for throwing it off is also the same.’[112] The goal was fixed and universalized. As a result, more complex ethical principles were reduced to a single consequentialist goal: the justifying end being the predetermined, unequivocal aim of Soviet-style revolution.

The party, the necessary instrument for the achievement of this end, required complete hegemony of all revolutionary socialist groupings. As a result, the BSP, under Lenin and Maxim Litvinoff’s (the plenipotentiary to the Soviet Government in Britain) instruction, began to exclude and marginalize those who did not share their structure of values. As 1918 progressed, The Call made fewer positive references to other socialist groups (except those it expected to join them in creating the British Communist Party) and fewer positive mentions of non-party actions.

The restructuring of socialist principles through the medium of the Party also impacted on the epistemology of Marxism. To maintain the purity of the party, Leninism increasingly relied upon the prestige of the revolutionary leadership and the singular, apparently successful, revolution. Shortly before the formal creation of the Communist Party, John Bryan proclaimed the transcendent basis of the Bolshevik leadership in almost theological terms, in an article titled ‘Man has risen,’ published in The Call:

But the Bolsheviks came, and the miracle unparalleled in human history happened … with a daring, truly Promethean … There had never been such a revolution in the history of mankind—a revolution on the ‘appointed’ day by a seemingly small handful of men, every one of whom was prepared to depart this life for the sake of life …

Russia of the proletariat and the peasants, Russia led by the Bolsheviks, Russia guided by the transcendent genius of Lenin and assisted by a host of workers with Trotsky, the incomparable organiser, at their head….[113]

The principles endorsed by Lenin were universal and not open to elaboration or addition from any alternative movement. As The Call became The Communist, its call for party discipline became more overt.[114] It ignored alternative interpretations of socialist principles: for instance, the socialist writer John Tamlyn complained that his letter criticizing The Call‘s version of Bakunin and Marx has been declined for publication in their journal.[115] Compared to the diverse readings on socialism in many of the pre-revolutionary socialist papers, The Communist‘s recommended readings were entirely based on the soviet experience of communism and revolution.[116]

By 1922, The Call‘s rejection of socialist opponents was more strident: anarchists were ‘sneak thieves and murderers.’[117] Tactics and organizational methods that were shared by anarchists and Marxists, such as revolutionary syndicalism, were rejected in favour of party-building. By 1921, such radical anti-parliamentary socialists were not worth ‘spending much time and space […] on,’ as they were the ‘Infantile Left,’[118] a dismissive phrase lifted directly from Lenin.[119] Even when rival socialists were attacked by capitalist states, they denied the existence of pertinent, rival socialist discourses and movements. For example, The Call‘s successor, The Communist, in its report on the judicial murder of the radicals Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (who were prosecuted and convicted of a murder on flimsy and contradictory evidence) made no mention of Sacco and Vanzetti’s anarchist commitments.[120] This omission is particularly telling as the initially successful prosecution used the defendants’ anarchist politics as one of the main pieces of evidence against them (though executed, they were posthumously pardoned in 1977). To have identified another effective radical politics would have been in conflict with the Leninist version of Marxism that presented itself as the only practical alternative to capitalism.[121]

As the authority of the single party grew in Russia, anarchists who were initially supportive of the revolution became critical of it, and increasingly defined themselves against the Marxism of the Bolsheviks. In the first month of 1920, Freedom, though critical of the Bolsheviks, was still optimistic that one could compel them to ‘revise their ideas’; it argued that it was unnecessary to ‘join a Marxist organization’ to join in propaganda in favour of the revolution.[122] By April 1920, Freedom‘s reports were more nuanced. It reported some atrocities in Russia, but blamed the previous regime rather than the revolutionary government. Anarchists spoke highly of improved working conditions, but remained critical of the state as the dominant employer and the restrictions on individuals’ freedom to pursue their own work.[123]

Throughout 1920, there was a continuous dialogue between the editors of Freedom and its readers over whether Communist rule was a temporary, justified measure, an understandable but mistaken response that is open to alteration and change, or a fundamental betrayal of socialist principles.[124] However, by 1921–1922, the matter was no longer contested: Bolsheviks were persecuting anarchists and other socialists according to respected reporters, including those such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman who had, at least initially, been sympathetic to the revolution.[125] The regime in Russia was regarded as a tyranny, and the structure of principles embedded within the social institutions of the Communist Party in Russia and Britain were to be rejected outright.[126] As Marxism became associated only with the main orthodoxy, so anarchists began to define themselves against it, and the terminology associated with it.[127]

Given the material resources, including the infamous ‘Russian gold’ that helped fund domestic Communist Parties,[128] the one time substantial membership of the Party, plus the considerable rhetorical skills of Lenin, and the prestige he carried, core principles were largely constrained in interpretation and capable of massive amplification. Smaller dissident Marxist groups still existed, but were drowned out by the Communist Party. These smaller Marxist groupings did have some intersection with anarchism, which had also been reduced in size because of the hegemonic victory of Leninism. These increasingly peripheral post-revolutionary Marxist groups were almost entirely those that had rejected the Leninist apparatus, strategy and interpretation of core principles, such as the Council Communism of Herman Gorter and Anton Pannekoek and Sylvia Pankhurst’s Workers Dreadnought.

8 The ends of the schism

The Leninist political structure was responsible for maintaining its singular interpretation of Marxism, which was consequentialist and statist and thus incompatible with anarchism. However, as the Party’s pivotal role weakened, alternative Marxisms began to reappear. The episodic decline of the revolutionary authority of the Communist Party included critical events such as the betrayal of the revolution in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1938), the Nazi-Soviet anti-aggression pact (1939–1941), and Nikita Khrushchev’s speech at the Twentieth Conference of the Communist Party that admitted to the abuses of Stalin’s rule, followed by the Soviet invasion of Hungary (1956) and the Prague Spring of February 1968. Each of these was partly produced by, and also produced renewed interest in, alternative non-Leninist formulations of, and practices in, Marxism. These were often associated with the possibility of constellations that could be allied to forms of anarchism, such as (using somewhat broad descriptors) Humanist Marxism, new left socialism, Situationist and libertarian communist movements.

With the final decline in the authority of the Leninist strategy and the collapse of the Soviet empire from 1989 to 1991, revolutionary strategies based on the dominant role of the vanguard party have declined in the UK. Even Leninists critical of the former Soviet Union have seen their small, though culturally influential, groups decline in numbers and impact. This has allowed for greater modification in Marxism, especially constellations that have actively engaged with libertarianism, such as the autonomous Marxist and other critical, non-Leninist communist traditions (from the likes of Harry Cleaver and John Holloway).[129] These coalitions have been a feature of successful anti-capitalist activities, much to the annoyance of more orthodox Marxists.[130] Some anarchists remain critical of certain features of these developments, fearing a reduction of anarchism into Marxism,[131] rather than a recognition of commonalities and differences. Others, however, such as Wayne Price, highlight those characteristics of some forms of autonomism that are still tied to state-party activity or a political epistemology wedded to an ontological determinism.[132] Nonetheless, many contemporary anarchists recognize that much can be gained from a thoughtful interaction with a renewed Marxism no longer tied to the regimented interpretations of the Leninist party.

Whilst those committed to the Leninist party structure are at the forefront of interpreting Marxism and anarchism as necessarily rival movements,[133] and some anarchists continue to define themselves against the Leninist version of Marxism,[134] in a wide range of groupings such distinctions have declined in importance. The heterodox autonomist Marxist trend, as the Lenin-defending Paul Blackledge critically notes, share most core principles and organizational modes of operation, and these are a threat to the orthodox Marxist tradition that maintains this division.[135]

9 Conclusion

This paper has explored two main ways of examining the distinction between anarchism and Marxism, one emanating from analytic, political philosophy; the other from the conceptual approach developed by Freeden. In the first, the commitment to discovering universal rules, through application of a single logos of reasoning, produces a limited account of anarchism (‘philosophical anarchism’) reduced to a single criterion of ‘absence of coercion’ (or is subsidiary principle ‘rejection of the state’), which is not only distinct from Marxism but from the actual practices of anarchist movements past and present. An alternative approach, derived from Freeden, looks at ideologies as stable, but adaptable core and peripheral concepts, which mutually self-define and are expressed through institutions, practices and traditions. Using this conceptual method of analysis, different structures of anarchism and Marxism are identified. Within this range of ideological constellations are forms of anarchism and Marxism that are contingently compatible.

Historically, whilst divisions persist, arising through strategic and tactical differences, there have also been areas of commonality. There were shared core principles, which were later shifted to the periphery. Whilst many Marxisms in the pre-revolutionary period might have included notions like the defence of the revolutionary state, it did not become core until after the Bolshevik success. As a result, concepts shared by a great number of social anarchists and Marxists, like ‘communism,’ were not interpreted primarily through the later adjacent contested notion of the ‘state.’ The communist goal was still ‘in the gristle.’ It was with the apparent success of the Bolshevik Revolution that key concepts within Marxism were defined in ways antipathetic to anarchism. Whilst other representative and centralized parties had similarly attempted to fix the interpretation of Marxism within a disciplined, centralized party, these failed to dominate as they lacked the resources and esteem necessary to discipline socialist dissenters. Similarly, as state-centred Communist parties have gone into rapid decline, alternative formulations now have greater space for expression and no longer need to primarily define themselves against the previous Leninist orthodoxy.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Lesley Stevenson for her superhuman efforts in turning my version of English into one that is (almost) comprehensible to others; to the Carnegie Trust for a travel scholarship to carry our primary research at the British Newspaper Library; to Prof. Christopher Thornhill for his helpful and supportive suggestions; and to staff and students at the University of Glasgow: Dumfries for their practical criticism and encouragement, in particular Dr Stuart Hanscomb. I am also grateful to friends and colleagues in various anarchist, Marxist and syndicalist groups for their insights and assistance.

[1] E. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914–1991 (London: Abacus, 1995).

[2] M. Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

[3] M. Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

[4] Analytic’ is preferred to ‘Anglo-American’ as the former stresses the importance of methodology rather than geography. Commentators like Philip Pettit and Daniel McDermott prefer ‘analytical’ to ‘analytic,’ but most learned societies based on this tradition use the latter, so ‘analytic’ and ‘analytical’ are used interchangeably.

[5] J. Wolff, An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 30, 149.

[6] M. Freeden, ‘Editorial: Liberalism in the limelight,’ Journal of Political Ideologies, 15 (2010), p. 7.

[7] A. Heywood, Political Ideologies: An Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1998), p. 197; B. Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom (Rockville, MD: ARC Manor, 2008), p. 5.

[8] G. Woodcook, Anarchism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), p. 136.

[9] P. Thomas, Karl Marx and the Anarchists (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 250.

[10] V. Serge, Revolution in Danger (London: Red Words, 1997), p. 104.

[11] Paul Thomas ‘All feathered up: A new defence of anarchism,’ Workers Liberty, available at http://www.workersliberty.org/files/110525featheredup.pdf (accessed 7 June 2011).

[12] M. Philp, ‘Political theory and history,’ in D. Leopold and M. Stears (Eds) Political Theory: Methods and Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 131–132; L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), paras. 66–67 (pp. 31–32); IIxi (pp. 193–196).

[13] D. McDermott, ‘Analytical political philosophy,’ in D. Leopold and M. Stears (Eds) Political Theory: Methods and Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 11–28.

[14] P. Pettit, ‘Analytical philosophy,’ in R. Goodin and P. Pettit (Eds) A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 7–38.

[15] McDermott, op. cit., Ref. 13, p. 11.

[16] P. Pettit, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 137.

[17] D. Miller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 16.

[18] P. McLaughlin, ‘In defence of philosophical anarchism,’ in B. Franks and M. Wilson (Eds) Anarchism and Moral Philosophy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), p. 22.

[19] See also P. McLaughlin, Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism (Aldershot: Gower, 2007), p. 16.

[20] Propertarian is the favoured term for right-libertarians and anarcho-capitalists, as it captures both schools and leaves open the question as whether either is actually a ‘libertarian’ or ‘anarchist’ theory properly speaking (see I. McKay, An Anarchist FAQ (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2008), pp. 478–503).

[21] A. Carter, ‘Outline of an anarchist theory of history,’ in D. Goodway (Ed.) For Anarchism: History, Theory and Practice (London: Routledge), p. 176.

[22] Thomas, op. cit., Ref. 9.

[23] P. McLaughlin, Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of His Theory of Anarchy (New York: Algora, 1993).

[24] For a wider discussion of this, see B. Franks, ‘Anarchism and analytic philosophy,’ in R. Kinna (Ed.) Continuum Companion to Anarchism (London: Continuum), pp. 53–73.

[25] D. Miller, Anarchism (London: Dent, 1984), pp. 2–3.

[26] D. Knowles, Political Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 249.

[27] McLaughlin, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 23.

[28] Miller, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 3.

[29] Miller, Miller, pp. 5–9, 15–16.

[30] D. Keyt, ‘Aristotle and anarchism,’ in Richard Kraut and Steven Skultety (Eds), Aristotle’s Politics (Oxford: Rowan & Littlefield, 2005), pp. 203–222; Knowles, op. cit., Ref. 26, p. 249; Wolff, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 30–31.

[31] A. Carter, ‘Analytical anarchism: Some conceptual foundations,’ Political Theory 28(2) (April 2000), pp. 230–253.

[32] G. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).

[33] D. Keyt, ‘Aristotle and anarchism,’ in R. Kraut and S. Skultety (Eds) Aristotle’s Politics (Oxford: Rowan & Littlefield, 2005), p. 204.

[34] There are exceptions. Alan Carter, for instance, also includes a commitment to equality, op. cit., Ref. 31, pp. 231–232. William Hocking’s version of ‘philosophical anarchism,’ predates R. P. Wolff by the best part of half a century and he too identifies economic equality as a core feature of anarchism (‘The philosophical anarchist,’ in Robert Hoffman (Ed.) Anarchism as Political Philosophy (London: Aldine Transaction, 2010), p. 118).

[35] R.P. Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (London: Harper, 1976).

[36] A. J. Simmons ‘The anarchist position: A reply to Klosko and Senor,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, 16(3) (1987), pp. 269–279; A. J. Simmons, ‘Justification and legitimacy,’ Ethics, 109(4) (July 1999), pp. 739–771.

[37] McLaughlin, op. cit., Ref. 19, pp. 70, 132–136.

[38] P. Vallentyne, H. Steiner, and M. Otsuka ‘Why left-libertarianism is not incoherent, indeterminate, or irrelevant: A reply to Fried,’ Philosophy & Public Affairs, 33(2) (March 2005), pp. 201–215.

[39] Miller, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 5; Heywood, op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 197.

[40] J. Mayer, ‘A postmodern look at the tension between anarchy and socialism,’ History of European Ideas, 16(4–6) (1993), p. 592.

[41] The Alarm, 1(10), Sunday, 22 November, 1896, p. 3.

[42] The Anarchist: Communist and Revolutionary, 2(17), Sunday, 24 February 1895, p. 3.

[43] W. McCartney, Dare to Be a Daniel! A History of One of Britain’s Earliest Syndicalist Unions 38 Strikes Fought—38 Won! The Life and Struggles of an Agitator and the Fight to Free the Catering Slaves of the West End of London (1910–1914) (London: Kate Sharpley Library, n.d.).

[44] G. Cores, Personal Recollections of the Anarchist Past (London: Kate Sharpley Library, 1992).

[45] See for instance K. Marx, ‘“The alleged splits in the First International” and “Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy”,’ in The First International And After Political Writings, Vol. 3 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992), pp. 269–314 and pp. 333–338; M. Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Russell, op. cit., Ref. 8, pp. 37–39; McLaughlin, op. cit., Ref. 23; Thomas, op. cit., Ref. 9; M. Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2010), pp. 14 and 45–46; Thomas, op. cit., Ref. 11, 17 May 2011 (accessed 17 June 2011); see too Iain McKay’s replies at http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/05/17/how-anarchism-parted-ways-marxism (accessed 17 June 2011).

[46] M. Lipman, Memoirs of a Socialist Businessman (London: Lipman Trust, 1980), p. 17.

[47] See for instance, ‘Ammunition for socialism,’ The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 23(3), Thursday, 14 September 1916, No. 23, p. 3.

[48] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 48–49.

[49] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 62.

[50] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 145.

[51] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 63–64.

[52] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 4; Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 61.

[53] See M. Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian manifesto (New York: Collier MacMillan, 1978), online edition (Ludwig Mises Institute, 2002), available at http://www.mises.org/rothbard/foranewlb.pdf (accessed 14 May 2010).

[54] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 86.

[55] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 86–87.

[56] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 77–78.

[57] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 78.

[58] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 62.

[59] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 63.

[60] P. Linebaugh, ‘Introduction,’ in Peter Linebaugh Presents Thomas Paine: ‘Rights of Man’ and ‘Common Sense’ (London: Verso, 2009), p. viii.

[61] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 1–2, 36–37.

[62] A. MacIntyre, Whose Justice, Which Rationality? (London, Duckworth, 2001).

[63] A. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2^nd edn (London: Duckworth, 2006).

[64] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 2.

[65] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 78–79.

[66] MacIntyre, op. cit., Ref. 63, p. 152.

[67] MacIntyre, op. cit., Ref. 63, pp. 187–188.

[68] MacIntyre, op. cit., Ref. 63, pp. 222–223.

[69] MacIntyre, op. cit., Ref. 62.

[70] M. Freeden, ‘What should the “political” in political theory explore,’ Journal of Political Philosophy, 13(2) (2005), pp. 113–134, 121.

[71] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 4–5, 28.

[72] G. Aldred, ‘Against terrorism in workers’ struggle’, in Studies in Communism (Glasgow: Strickland Press, 1940), pp. 53–57.

[73] Solidarity, As We Don’t See It (London: London Solidarity, 1967).

[74] See, for instance, J. Barr, ‘Question Marx,’ Heavy Stuff, 4 (1991); Class War, 73 (1997), pp. 10–12; Trotwatch, Trotwatch: An Anarchist Commentary on the Left (Nottingham: Trotwatch, 1992); Virus: An Anarcho-Socialist Magazine, 1 (1984), pp. 1, 7–10.

[75] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 311–314.

[76] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 311.

[77] Miller, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 14; also R. Kinna who also argues that there is no single unified account of anarchism which can cover individualists, egoists and socialists, and that only by looking at their histories and actions can anarchist ideas be properly conceptualized (Anarchism: A Beginners Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005), pp. 1–38).

[78] Miller, op. cit., Ref. 25, pp. 45–59, 169–183.

[79] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2., p. 312.

[80] See Knowles, op. cit., Ref. 22; Wolff, op. cit., Ref. 5.

[81] J. Gore, ‘In the eye of the beholder—Child, mad or artist,’ in J. Purkis and J. Bowen (Eds), Changing Anarchism: Anarchist Theory and Practice in a Global Age (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), pp. 146, 156.

[82] Q. Graeber, in J. Goaman, ‘The anarchist travelling circus: Reflections on contemporary anarchism, anti-capitalism and the international scene,’ in Purkis and Bowen (Eds) op. cit. Ref, 81, p. 165.

[83] Q. Kropotkin, in Wolff, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 29.

[84] P. Kropotkin, Ethics: Origins and Development (Montreal: Black Rose, 1992).

[85] McLaughlin, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 4.

[86] Q. W. Guillaume, in M. Bakunin, Marxism, Freedom and the State (London: Freedom Press, 1984), p. 7.

[87] N. Chomsky, ‘Chomsky on Ron Paul,’ Anarchismtoday.org, Sunday, 2 December 2007, available at http://anarchismtoday.org/News/article/sid = 74.html (accessed 16 May 2010).

[88] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 425–426.

[89] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 426.

[90] K. Marx and F. Engels, German Ideology (Moscow: Progress, 1976), p. 57.

[91] Christopher Garland discusses this in his paper ‘A dual-power situation? Communization and the materiality of anti-power,’ Taking Control Conference, 12 March 2011, available at Backdoor Broadcasting Company, http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2011/03/christian-garland-a-dual-power-situation-communization-and-the-materiality-of-anti-power/ (accessed 6 June 2011).

[92] Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 63–64.

[93] W. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals 1875–1914 (London: Duckworth, 1975), p. 151.

[94] See Bakunin, op. cit., Ref. 86, pp. 35–39.

[95] P. Kropotkin, ‘1886–1907: Glimpses into the labour movement in this country,’ Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, 21(222) (October 1907), pp. 57–58.

[96] P. Kropotkin, ‘1886–1907: Glimpses into the labour movement in this country,’ Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, 21(222) (October 1907), p. 57.

[97] P. Kropotkin, ‘1886–1907: Glimpses into the labour movement in this country,’ Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, 21(222) (October 1907), pp. 57–58.

[98] P. Kropotkin, ‘1886–1907: Glimpses into the labour movement in this country,’ Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, 21(222) (October 1907), p. 58.

[99] P. Kropotkin, ‘1886–1907: Glimpses into the labour movement in this country,’ Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, 21(222) (October 1907); Fishman, op. cit., Ref. 93, pp. 186–187.

[100] 100. D. Marsden, ‘The illusion of anarchism,’ The Egoist: An individualist review, 1(18), Tuesday, 15 September 1914, pp. 341–342; D.M. [Dora Marsden?], ‘Views and comments,’ The Egoist: An individualist review, 1(16) (15 August 1914), pp. 303–305.

[101] Fishman, op. cit., Ref. 93, p. 321.

[102] See, for instance, S. Carlyle Potter, ‘Propaganda notes,’ Freedom (January 1909), p. 7.

[103] A. Berkman, The Russian Tragedy (London: Phoenix, 1986), pp. 82–83.

[104] Freedom (February 1918), p. 7.

[105] V. Lenin, ‘Left-Wing’ Communism: An Infantile Disorder (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1975).

[106] The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 2 (9 March 1916), pp. 1–2; W. Watson, ‘Capitalism,’ The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 3 (16 March 1916), p. 4.

[107] The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 1 (24 February 1916), p. 1.

[108] The Call, 1 (1916), The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 1 (24 February 1916), p. 4.

[109] The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 60 (31 May 1917), p. 4.

[110] D. Montefiore ‘The Ferment of Revolution,’ The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 80, 18 October 1917, p. 2.

[111] The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 97 (14 February 1918), p. 1.

[112] The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 87 (6 December 1917), 97 (14 February 1918), p. 1.

[113] J. Bryan, ‘Man has arisen,’ The Call: An Organ of International Socialism, 208, Thursday, 1 April 1920, p. 2.

[114] T. Bell, ‘On party organisation,’ The Communist (8 October 1921), p. 4.

[115] J. Tamlyn, ‘Marx and Bakunin,’ Freedom (June 1920), p. 35.

[116] See The Communist (12 August 1920), p. 10.

[117] Editor of Izvestia, ‘Anti-Soviet revolutionaries,’ The Communist (22 April 1922), p. 3.

[118] The Communist, 65, Saturday, 29 October 1921, p. 1.

[119] Lenin, op. cit., Ref. 105.

[120] J. Caleg, ‘Sacco and Vanzetti,’ The Communist (10 June 1922).

[121] Freedom (July–August 1927), p. 37.

[122] Freedom (January 1920), p. 6.

[123] Freedom (April 1920), p. 20.

[124] See, for instance, F. Tyler, ‘Anarchism and Bolshevism,’ Freedom (January 1920), p. 6; J. Tamlyn, ‘Anarchism and Bolshevism,’ Freedom (January 1920), p. 20; S. Cooper, ‘Anarchism and Bolshevism,’ Freedom (May 1920), p. 20; Tamlyn, op. cit., Ref. 115, p. 35; W. Winter, ‘Anarchism and Bolshevism,’ Freedom (July 1920), p. 38; B. Plattin, ‘Anarchists and dictatorship of the proletariat,’ Freedom (December 1920), p. 78.

[125] Freedom (July 1921), p. 37; A. Berkman and E. Goldman, ‘Bolsheviks shooting anarchists,’ Freedom (January 1922), p. 4.

[126] Freedom (April 1922), pp. 23–24; A. Berkman, ‘Some Bolshevik lies about the Russian anarchists,’ Freedom (April 1922), pp. 24–26; E. Goldman, ‘The story of Bolshevik tyranny,’ Freedom (July 1922), pp. 47–51.

[127] G. Rhys, ‘Class war’s rough guide to the left,’ Class War: The Heavy Stuff, 2 (n.d.), p. 26.

[128] W. Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969), p. 249.

[129] H. Cleaver, ‘Kropotkin, self-valorization and the crisis of Marxism’ (1993), available at Libcom, http://libcom.org/library/kropotkin-self-valorization-crisis-marxism and http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/Kropotkin/KropotkinSelf-valorization.htm (accessed 17 May 2010), also published in Anarchist Studies 2(2) (1994); J. Holloway, Change the World Without Taking Power (London: Pluto, 2002).

[130] See the debates listed at Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective, ‘An anarchist FAQ. Appendix: Anarchism and Marxism,’ The Anarchist Library, 11 November 2008, available at http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append3.html (accessed 17 May 2010).

[131] Anarcho, ‘“Synthesised” Marxism and anarchism? My arse!,’ Anarchist Writers, 17 July 2009, available at http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/synthesised-marxism-and-anarchism-my-arse (accessed 17 May 2010).

[132] W. Price, ‘Libertarian Marxisms’ Relation to Anarchism’, Libcom.org, available at http://libcom.org/library/libertarian-marxisms-relation-anarchism (accessed 17 June 2011).

[133] See, for instance, Paul Blackledge’s ‘Marxism and Anarchism’ in the Socialist Workers Party’s International Socialism, 125 (January 2010), available at http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id = 616&issue = 125 (accessed 8 June 2011); Thomas op. cit., Ref. 11.

[134] M. Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt, op. cit., Ref. 45.

[135] Blackledge, op. cit., Ref. 133.