Spartacist (ICL) Theory of Anarchism

The International Communist League, represented in (english) Canada as the Spartacist League, have a theory of anarchism emerging specifically as a result of the “low tide” or “movement interregnum” that followed the last cycle of struggle. In other words, in pissing-contest fashion, the line is put forth that because the left is weak, well-intentioned people are drawn towards anarchism. (In so doing, they seem to draw on Lenin’s accusation that “Anarchism was not infrequently a kind of penalty for the opportunist sins of the working-class movement.”)

For instance:

The emergence of anarchism as a prevalent ideology among radicalized youth today is a reflection of what we Marxists understand as a global retrogression in political consciousness following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991-92 and the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet degenerated workers state and the deformed workers states of East Europe.

Yippedy doo daa!

The implication being that a strong and vibrant left would see the decline of anarchist ideology.

Now i’m not an anarchist, nor am i a Trotskyist, so in the pissing-contest sense of this discussion i can say “i don’t have a dog in that fight.” But as a member of the radical left, as a post-anarchist leftist, i am interested in what evidence supports or contradicts this theory.

Ideas, anyone?

Northbay Uprising radio says:

October 6, 2011 at 2:46 am

Anarchism is not an ideology based in models of revolution established by long-dead Europeans… I choose to call myself an “anarchist” because it is a dynamic tendency which is based in the conditions which I am in.

Doug says:

February 11, 2014 at 7:50 pm

Note that this argument doesn’t say that anarchism is wrong. It just puts forward a theory of when anarchism is likely to flourish, and when Bolshevism is likely to flourish, with the implication that it’s more or less a zero-sum game between them.

In other words, the assumption is that there is a (growing/shrinking, depending on circumstances) pool of (mainly young) people, who might be attracted to either some form of anarchism, or to some form of Leninism, depending on political developments. Put another way, people don’t form their ideas in a vacuum, but are influenced by events around them.

Put that way, it seems innocuous enough. And it would seem to be testable: historically, when and where did anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism flourish? When did forms of Leninism flourish?

I think you can make at least a superficially plausible case that whichever political tendency seems to be putting up the best fight against capitalism, will attract lots of radical young people: the Leninists after the Russian Revolution, the Stalinists in the 30s, and the Third World guerillas in the late 60s and 70s (although there was never a centralized political movement around this rather vague ideology, which couldn’t find a concrete expression in the advanced countries, leaving its New Left supporters without much to do).

I suppose you could count the a- and anti-political hippies of that period, especially those who sought to found alternative communities, as some form of anarchist, but this would confirm the Spartacist thesis: revolutionary Leninism didn’t seem a realistic way forward then, so people looked to some other way to escape from the system.

What the Spartacists (and other orthodox Leninists, who would probably agree with them here) are predicting, is this: if, somewhere, a centralized Bolshevik Party were able to conquer power, suppress the bourgeosie, ruthlessly crush all its reformist and centrist opponents, close down all the newspapers of those who disagreed with them (ie who were counterrevolutionaries), and establish a true dictatorship of the proletariat, where only a single party was legal, and that party subjected to iron discipline … then many people who are currently anarchists would flock to join the new victors.

Well, would you?

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