Two Conflicting Ideas
25 10 09 - 10:47
(...) The Bolshevik idea was to erect upon the ruins of the bourgeois State a new "workers' State," to establish a "worker and peasant government" and introduce the "dictatorship of the proliteriat."
The anarchist idea was to overhaul the economic and social foundations of society without resorting to a political State, government or "dictatorship" of any description, which is to say to carry out the Revolution and resolve its difficulties, not by political and State means, but by means of the natural, unforced economic and social activity of the workers' very own associations, once the last capitalist government had been overthrown.
In order to coordinate activity, the first of these outlooks envisaged a central political authority, orchestrating the life of the State to abet the government and its agents, in accordance with formal directives emanating from the "center."
The alternative approach implied jettisoning political and State organization once and for all; the direct and federative arrangements between economic, social, technical or other bodies (trade unions, cooperatives, various associations, etc.) at local, regional, national and international levels; signifying not a political, statist centralization reaching out from the government at the center to the periphery controlled by it, but rather an economic and technical centralization, dictated by real needs and interests, moving from the periphery towards the centers and established naturally and logically in accordance with actual needs, with no domination and no commands.
Note the absurdity, or partisanship of the reproach leveled at anarchists to the effect that they know only "how to destroy" and have no "positive" ideas [...] especially when the reproach emanates from "leftists". Discussions between far-left political parties and the anarchists had always centered upon what [...] had to be done once the bourgeois State have been destroyed--- a destruction upon which all agreed. Along what lines should the construction of the new society proceed: statist, centralist and political, or federalist, apolitical and merely social? This was as ever the subject of disputations between the two sides: irrefutable evidence that the anarchists' central preoccupation was always nothing less than building the future.
In place of the parties' thesis that there should be a "transitional" political, centralized State, anarchists offered their own: that there should be ongoing but immediate progess towards real economic and federative community. The political parties rely upon the social structure bequeathed by bygone ages and regimes and argue that there are constructive ideas implicit in this model. Anarchists reckon that, from the outset, fresh construction requires fresh methods and they advocate such methods. Whether their contention be right or wrong, it proves at any rate that they are perfectly clear as to what they want and that they have clear-cut constructive ideas.
Generally speaking, a wrong-headed, or, most often, knowingly incorrect, interpretation argues that the libertarian approach signifies absence of all organization. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not a question of "organization" or of "non-organization," but rather of two different organizing principles.
Of necessity, every revolution begins in a more or less spontaneous--- and thus confused and chaotic foundation. It goes without saying, an libertarians understand this as well as anybody else, that if a revolution reamains at that stage, the primitive stage, it founders. Immediately following the spontaneous eruption, the organizing principle has to intervene in a revolution, as in any other human undertaking. And it is at that point that the serious question arises: what are the tenor and the basis of that organization to be?
Some contend that a central leadership group, an "elite" group, should be formed in order to take the whole endeavor in hand and see it through in occordance with its lights, imposing the latter upon the entire collectivity, establishing a government and organizing a State, dictating its wishe to the population, imposing its "laws" through force and violence and combating, eliminating and even annihilating those in disagreement with it.
Others reckon that such a view is absurd, contrary to the underlying trends in human evolution and, in the last analysis, more than sterile: downright damaging to the whole undertaking. Of course, the anarchists say, society must be organized. But that new, normal and henceforth feasible organization ought to proceed freely and socially an, above all, from the grassroots up. The organizing principle should emanate, not from center ready-made for the purposes of capturing the whole and overruling it, but the very opposite, from all points, arriving at coordinating centers, natural centers designed to service all these points.
Of course, the organizing spirit, men with a capacity for organization, "elites", must play their part. But everywhere and in all circumstances, all such human resources must participate freely in the common undertaking as true colloaborators and not as dictators. Everywhere, they should set an example and set about marshalling, coordinating and organizing people's goodwill, initiative, expertise, talents and aptitudes, without dominating, subjugating or oppressing them. Such men would be true organizers and their handiwork would be natural, humane and genuinely progressive. Whereas the other sort of "organization", modeled upon that of an old society rooted in oppression and exploitation, and consequently tailored to those two purposes, would be sterile and unstable, because it is incongruent with the new targets and thus in no way progressive. Indeed, it would contribute nothing to the new society: instead, it would take all of the blights of the old society to extremes in that only their appearance would have altered.
Belonging to an obsolete society overtaken in every respect and thus impossible as a natural, free and truly human institution, it could not survive other than with the aid of some new artifice, some new trickery, some new violence, fresh oppressions and exploitations. Which would, of necessity, sidetrack, mislead and jeopardize the entire revolution. Self-evidently, such organization would remain stalled as a locomotive of the social revolution. In no way could it serve as a "transitional society" (as the "communists" contend) for such a society would necessarily have to carry at least a few of the seeds of the society towards which it would be evolving--- now, every authoritarian and Statist society would possess only residues from the overthrown society.
According to the libertarian case, it was the toiling masses themselves who, through their various class agencies (factory committees, industrial and agricultural unions, cooperatives, etc.), federated and centralized in response to the real needs, were everywhere to busy themselves on the spot with resolving the problems of the Revolution. Through their activity, which would be powerful and fruitful, in that it would be free and deliberate, they were to coordinate their efforts right accross the length and breadth of the land. As for the "elites," their role, as libertarians saw it, was to assist the masses; to enlighten and instruct them, to offer the requisite advice and nudge them towards such and such initiative, setting an example and supporting them in their activity, but not directing them government-style.
According to libertarians, happy resolution of the problems of the social revolution could only come about through the freely and consciously collective, solidary efforts of millions of men, contributing and reconciling the whole diversity of their needs and interests as well as of their ideas, strengths and capabilities, their talents, aptitudes, dispositions, professional know-how and expertise, etc. Through the natural inter-play of their economic technical and social bodies, with the aid of the "elites" and, if need be, under the umbrella of their freely organized armed forces, the toiling masses, according to libertarians, ought to have been able to move the social revolution forward and arrive progressively at the practical accomplishment of all its tasks.
The Bolshevik line was diametrically the opposite. According to the Bolsheviks, it was the elite---their elite--- which, by forming a government (a so-called "workers" government enforcing the so-called "dictatorship of the proliteriat") was to carry through the transformation of society and resolve its immense problems. The masses were to assist this elite (the converse of the libertarians' line, whereby the elite was to assist the masses) by faithfully, blindly and "mechanically" implementing its plans, decisions, orders and "laws". And the armed forces, likewise modeled upon those of the capitalist countries, had to be blindly obedient to the "elite."
Such was and is the essential difference between the two outlooks.
Such also were the two contrary notions of social revolution at the time of the Russian overthrow in 1917.
The Bolsheviks, as we have stated, were unwilling even to listen to the anarchists, much less allow them to put their thesis to the masses. Believing themselves to be possessed of an absolute incontrovertible and "scientific" truth, arguing that they had a duty to impose and apply it as a matter of urgency, they fought and eliminated the libertarian movement through recourse to violence as soon as the latter began to awaken the interest of the masses: the customary practice of all overlords, exploiters, and inquisitors.
---Voline
