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.

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.

Notes

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  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.

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 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).

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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.