On December 14, 2024, UCL Lyon organized a libertarian café at its La
Plume Noire campus. The theme, "Marx and the Libertarians," dealt withMarxism. The discussion specifically addressed two questions: Is Marxism
compatible with libertarian ideas and practice? Is Marxism still useful
today for thinking about human emancipation? We offer here a summary of
the presentation given at the opening of the debate. ---- The
relationship to Marxism has always been a debate within the libertarian
communist movement. Even before the founding of the Union of Libertarian
Communist Workers (UTCL) in 1974, Daniel Guérin proposed an attempt at a
synthesis that he successively called "for a libertarian Marxism" and
then "in search of a libertarian communism"[1]. Other thinkers outside
the libertarian communist movement have also pondered the issue. One
example is Maximilien Rubel, an eminent Marx scholar and author of,
among other works, Marx, Theoretician of Anarchism[2].
The relationship between Marx and the early libertarians was ambiguous,
to say the least. Bakunin, the leading theoretician of anarchism, first
met Marx and Engels in 1844. At that time, the three Young Hegelians
maintained a cordial, even friendly, relationship. From 1868 onward,
within the Young First International (IWA), things gradually became
tense before degenerating into open conflict. Bakunin was ultimately
expelled from the IWA in 1872, taking several sections with him. Without
attempting to arbitrate the various accusations leveled between Bakunin
and Marx, let us briefly review the main disagreements before asking the
following question: is Marxism still useful for our struggles?
Karl Marx (1818-1883), a German philosopher, economist, and
revolutionary, was a theorist of historical materialism and a founding
figure of communism.
The Application of Historical Materialism
Marx and Engels proposed dialectical and historical materialism as a
framework for analysis. Briefly, they asserted that history is
determined by the material conditions of existence of men and women. In
other words, it is the way in which human beings produce and reproduce
the conditions of their existence. The political model of a given
society therefore depends on its mode of production. Marx and Engels
defined the economy (mode of production) as "the infrastructure of a
society," and politics (mode of governance, culture, religion, etc.) as
its "superstructure."
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) was a German philosopher, industrialist,
and revolutionary. He co-authored the Communist Manifesto with Marx and
was a theoretician of scientific socialism. Bakunin does not contradict
this idea, but considers that Marx and Engels do not sufficiently take
into account the influence of human beings on their own history. He also
believes that the description of history proposed by the two thinkers
works for "Germanic" Europe but not for other parts of the world,
particularly for the Slavic peoples. Engels, without mentioning him,
agrees with him in 1890 in a letter to J. Bloch: "According to the
materialist conception of history, the determining factor in history is,
in the last instance, the production and reproduction of real
life.[...]Neither Marx nor I have ever stated more. If, then, someone
twists this proposition to make it say that the economic factor is the
only determining factor, he transforms it into an empty, abstract, and
absurd phrase."
What organization for the working class?
The second major disagreement between Bakunin and Marx is political.
This is not an abstract theoretical opposition but a major strategic
divergence on the following question: what do we do now? To summarize,
Marx and Engels considered it essential to structure the struggles of
the proletariat through workers' parties (called social-democratic at
the time). These parties must be capable of politically guiding the
masses, including by using bourgeois institutions as tactical weapons
(without any illusions about their nature).
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) was a Russian philosopher, revolutionary,
and anarchist theorist. He inspired anti-authoritarian struggles and
laid the foundations of modern anarchism.
For them, the seizure of political power by the proletariat was a key
step in dismantling the bourgeois state and initiating the transition to
communism. Bakunin and his followers, for their part, advocated an
approach that could be described as "revolutionary pre-syndicalism."
They believe that the immediate organization of workers into trade
federations to defend their economic interests is both a necessity and
the basis for social revolution. These economic structures must
prefigure the federative organization of the future society, without
requiring the seizure of political power or the establishment of a
state, which they consider oppressive.
In hindsight, we see that this debate is still relevant, albeit one that
has evolved. Libertarians quickly realized the need to group together in
specific organizations. One example is the Ukrainian anarchist refugees
in France. Fighting within the Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurrectionary
Army (known as the Makhnovtchina), they suffered a crushing defeat in
1921 against the Red Army. Some of them, after finding refuge in Paris,
analyzed the reasons for the defeat. They came to the following
conclusion: if the anarchists lost in Russia, it was due to a lack of
organizational solidity and discipline. Consequently, they wrote the
so-called Arshinov Platform, which remains a reference for the UCL today.
For their part, "pure" Marxists turned more towards syndicalism, as in
France, where the French Communist Party (PCF) managed for a time to
organize a considerable part of the revolutionary syndicalist movement
around itself. The question today is more about where we place the
cursor between party and union, between the use of institutions and
outright rejection.
The Marx-Engels-Forum is located in a public park in the central Mitte
district of Berlin.
Bronze sculpture by Ludwig Engelhardt
The Question of the State
This is a complex question. When Marx speaks of a "people's state" and
the "dictatorship of the proletariat," he never defines their exact
form. While the so-called "real socialist" states claimed to be inspired
by Marx, he was never so precise. Attributing the failures of Stalinism
to Marx is therefore, at best, a gross error. What is the state for
Marx? Marxism defines the state as a "grouping of armed men." Its power
is ensured and maintained by the monopoly of force, then by the monopoly
of taxation.
Marx considered that the state emerges when the contradictions between
classes within a society become too strong to be maintained. The
relations of production give rise to antagonistic social classes. Having
reached a certain stage in their development, human societies could no
longer tolerate these antagonisms. The only way to perpetuate the
domination of one class over another was through the constitution of the
state. The latter has existed since the period of ancient slavery and
has continued throughout history up to the modern state as we know it,
which today ensures the domination of capitalists over the proletariat.
The role of the state is therefore clear: it makes bourgeois domination
"legal" and regulates social conflicts. The proletariat will always lose
in this context: the state can either bind them to a handful of hard-won
compromises or repress them if it considers them to be going too far.
Marx and Engels were convinced that the state must disappear. But for it
to disappear, the conditions for its disappearance must first be met,
namely the disappearance of social classes. To make classes disappear,
the proletariat must exercise its own power. Indeed, only the
proletariat has an interest in the destruction of classes. It is
therefore the only one capable of carrying the communist revolutionary
process through to its conclusion. This is why Marx considered the
transition to the dictatorship of the proletariat necessary. It still
involves the domination of one class over another, but this time, it is
the domination of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie and the petty
bourgeoisie. According to Marx, the people's state does not have the
same characteristics as the bourgeois state. It is not a question of
painting bourgeois institutions red. However, the institutions of the
dictatorship of the proletariat do, in Marx's mind, constitute a state.
This is not destined to persist once social classes have disappeared.
The Epic of the Mexican People (Epopeya del pueblo mexicano, in Spanish)
is a fresco by Mexican painter Diego Rivera, painted on the walls of the
main staircase of the National Palace in Mexico City between 1929 and 1935.
Fresco by Diego Rivera
Don't wait for the withering away of the state
For Bakunin, the state must be abolished and replaced by a federative
society based on workers' organizations. Bakunin does not, however, deny
the necessity of violence and the crushing of the bourgeoisie. Like
Marx, he remains rather vague about the transitional phase between
revolution and the establishment of communism.
However, he largely emphasized the need to prevent the emergence of
leaders through decentralized functioning. Indeed, he feared that a
centralized power in the revolution would lead to the restoration of the
old world.
Continuing Bakunin's thinking, the libertarian movement proposed several
alternatives to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Let us focus for a
moment on that of Georges Fontenis, who, in his Manifesto of Libertarian
Communism, devotes a chapter to this notion. Pointing out the vague
nature of the Marxist concept, he emphasized the need for power
exercised directly by the class, and not by the party. He proposed the
concept of "direct workers' power," meaning power to unions, councils, etc.
Is Marx's thinking incompatible with that of libertarians? Let us note
an interesting fact. At the time of the Paris Commune, Marx and Bakunin
were members of the same organization, the IWA. They maintained
extensive correspondence with the Communards, who sent them reports and
documents on the unfolding of events[3]. Marx and Bakunin
enthusiastically welcomed the Commune: for Marx, it had achieved "the
finally found form of the people's state," while for Bakunin, it had
achieved "the abolition of the state."
The libertarian communist movement would be wrong not to seriously
examine Marx. Even more so to reject him out of historical alignment.
Marxist analysis, and in particular the method that accompanies it,
offers a sharp perspective on the capitalist world. Without this method,
we condemn ourselves to moral posturing and idealistic reasoning. While
it is true that Marx has aged and his theory deserves a bit of polish,
his ideas remain essential, particularly on economics and historical
materialism.
Marx offers essential work for understanding the economic mechanisms of
capitalism. He demonstrates how the relationship between bosses and
proletarians lies at the heart of society. The concept of surplus value
still helps explain most social conflicts today.
Going Beyond Marx Through Marxism
An interesting book for discovering Marxist economics is Karl Marx's
Abridged Capital by Carlo Cafiero[4]. In this small, easily accessible
work, aimed at workers, Cafiero attempts to make the basics of Marxist
economics understandable. Bonus point: Cafiero is a libertarian!
Moreover, while the terms historical and dialectical materialism may
seem daunting, the concept is actually not that difficult to master.
Above all, understanding this concept allows us to better grasp the
dynamics of history (and therefore of capitalism). And understanding
history means understanding the present.
Regarding these concepts, we can recommend Elementary Principles of
Philosophy by Georges Politzer[5]. This is a summary of his students'
notes at the Workers' University in 1930. Despite his Stalinist bias,
Politzer offers a clear and understandable vision of dialectical
materialism. UCL also offers a "materialism" course dedicated to its
activists.
While Marx's work is essential, it focused on the proletariat of the
major industrial centers and ignored the invisible labor of women as
well as the role of colonial exploitation. To right this wrong, one
could read Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth or Silvia Federici's
Patriarchal Capitalism[6]. Far from a fossilized Marxism, we need a
Marxism that is open and inclusive of its evolutions. And libertarians
have every interest in studying Marxism as much as Marxist revolutions.
For revolutionaries, there must be no taboos, only victory... or victory!
Pierre Shut (UCL Grenoble)
Validate
[1]Daniel Guérin, For a Libertarian Marxism, Laffont, 1969 and In Search
of a Libertarian Communism, Spartacus, 1984.
[2]Maximilien Rubel, Marx, Theoretician of Anarchism, Le Vent du ch'min,
1983, reprinted by Entremonde, 2011.
[3]This is how Karl Marx wrote The Civil War in France in 1891. The full
text is available on Marxists.org.
[4]Carlo Cafiero, Abridged Capital by Karl Marx, Stock, 1924, reprinted
by Éditions du Chien rouge, 2021.
[5]Georges Politzer, Elementary Principles of Philosophy, reprinted by
Delga, 2009.
[6]Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Maspéro, 1961, reissued by
La Découverte, 2004; Silvia Federici, Patriarchal Capitalism, La
Fabrique, 2019.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Marx-et-les-libertaires-Le-marxisme-une-force-au-service-des-luttes
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