Eric Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries, 1973.
II ANARCHISTS
CHAPTER 7
Bolshevism and the Anarchists
The libertarian tradition of communism -- anarchism -- has been bitterly hostile to the marxist ever since Bakunin, or for that matter Proudhon. Marxism, and even more leninism, have been equally hostile to anarchism as theory and programme and contemptuous of it as a political movement. Yet if we investigate the history of the international communist movement in the period of the Russian revolution and the Communist International, we find a curious asymmetry. While the leading spokesmen of anarchism maintained their hostility to bolshevism with, at best, a momentary wavering during the actual revolution, or at the moment when the news of October reached them, the attitude of the bolsheviks, in and outside Russia, was for a time considerably more benevolent to the anarchists. This is the subject of the present paper.
The theoretical attitude with which bolshevism approached anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements after 1917, was quite clear. Marx, Engels and Lenin had all written on the subject, and in general there seemed to be no ambiguity or mutual inconsistency about their views, which may be summarized as follows:
(a) There is no difference between the ultimate objects of marxists and anarchists, i.e. a libertarian communism in which exploitation, classes and the state will have ceased to exist.
(b) Marxists believe that this ultimate stage will be separated from the overthrow of bourgeois power through proletarian revolution, by a more or less protracted interval characterized by the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and other transitional arrangements, in which state power would play some part. There was room for some argument about the precise meaning of the classical marxist writings on these problems of transition, but no ambiguity at all about the marxist view that the proletarian revolution would not give rise immediately to communism, and that the state could not be abolished, but would 'wither away'. On this point the conflict with anarchist doctrine was total and clearly defined.
(c) In addition to the characteristic readiness of marxists to see the power of a revolutionary state used for revolutionary purposes, marxism was actively committed to a firm belief in the superiority of centralization to decentralization or federalism and (especially in the leninist version), to a belief in the indispensability of leadership, organization and discipline and the inadequacy of any movement based on mere 'spontaneity'.
(d) Where participation in the formal processes of politics was possible, marxists took it for granted that socialist and communist movements would engage in it as much as in any other activities which could contribute to advance the overthrow of capitalism.
(e) While some marxists developed critiques of the actual or potential authoritarian and/or bureaucratic tendencies of parties based on the classical marxist tradition, none of these critics abandoned their characteristic lack of sympathy for anarchist movements, so long as they considered themselves to be marxists.
The record of the political relations between marxist movements and anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist ones, appeared equally unambiguous in 1917. In fact, these relations had been considerably more acrimonious in the lifetime of Marx, Engels
and the Second International than they were to be in that of the Comintern. Marx himself had fought and criticized Proudhon and Bakunin, and the other way round. The major social democratic parties had done their best to exclude anarchists, or been obliged to do so. Unlike the First International, the Second no longer included them, at all events after the London Congress of 1896. Where marxist and anarchist movements coexisted, it was as rivals, if not as enemies. However, though the marxists were intensely exasperated by the anarchists in practice revolutionary marxists, who shared with them an increasing hostility to the reformism of the Second International, tended to regard them as revolutionaries, if misguided ones. This was in line with the theoretical view summarized in (a) above. At least anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism might be regarded as a comprehensible reaction against reformism and opportunism. Indeed, it might be - and was - argued that reformism and anarcho-syndicalism were part of the same phenomenon: without the one, the other would not have gained so much ground. It could further be argued that the collapse of reformism would also automatically weaken anarcho-syndicalism.
It is not clear how far these views of the ideologists and political leaders were shared by the rank-and-file militants and supporters of the marxist movements. We may suppose that the differences were often much less clearly felt at this level. It is a well-known fact that doctrinal, ideological and programmatic distinctions which are of major importance at one level, are of negligible importance at another- e.g. that as late as 1917 'social democratic' workers in many Russian towns were barely if at all aware of the differences between bolsheviks and mensheviks. The historian of labour movements and their doctrines forgets such facts at his peril.
This general background must be supplemented by a discussion of the differences between the situation in various parts of
the world, in so far as these affected the relations between communists and anarchists or anarcho-syndicalists. No comprehensive survey can be made here, but at least three different types of countries must be distinguished:
(a) Regions in which anarchism had never been of major significance in the labour movement, e.g. most of north-western Europe (except the Netherlands), and several colonial areas in which labour and socialist movements had hardly developed before 1917.
(b) Regions in which anarchist influence had been significant, but diminished dramatically, and perhaps decisively, in the period 1914-36. These must include part of the Latin world, e.g. France, Italy and some Latin American countries, as also China, Japan and -- for somewhat different reasons -- Russia.
(c) Regions in which anarchist influence remained significant, if not dominant, until the latter part of the 1930s. Spain is the most obvious case.
In regions of the first type relations with movements describing themselves as anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist were of no significance to communist movements. The existence of small numbers of anarchists, mainly artists and intellectuals, raised no political problem, and neither did the presence of anarchist political refugees, immigrant communities in which anarchism might be influential, and other phenomena marginal to the native labour movement. This appears to have been the case in, say, Britain and Germany after the 1870s and 1880s, when anarchist trends had played some part, mainly disruptive, in the special circumstances of extremely small socialist movements or socialist movements temporarily pressed into semi-illegality as by Bismarck's anti-socialist law. The struggles between centralized and decentralized types of movement, between bureaucratic and anti-bureaucratic, 'spontaneous' and 'disciplined' movements were fought out without any special reference (except by academic writers or a few very erudite marxists)
to the anarchists. This was the case in Britain in the period corresponding to that of revolutionary syndicalism on the continent. The extent to which communist parties showed themselves to be aware of anarchism as a political problem in their countries, remains to be seriously studied by a systematic analysis of their polemical publications (in so far as these did not merely echo the preoccupations of the International), of their translation and/or re-publication of classical marxist writings on anarchism, etc. However, it may be suggested with some confidence that they regarded the problem as negligible, compared to that of reformism, doctrinal schisms within the communist movement, or certain kinds of petty-bourgeois ideological trends such as, in Britain, pacifism. It was certainly entirely possible to be deeply involved in the communist movement in Germany in the early 1930s, in Britain in the later 1930s, without paying more than the most cursory or academic attention to anarchism, or indeed without ever having to discuss the subject.
The regions of the second type are in some respects the most interesting from the point of view of the present discussion. We are here dealing with countries or areas in which anarchism was an important, in some periods or sectors a dominant influence in the trade unions or the political movements of the extreme left.
The crucial historical fact here is the dramatic decline of anarchist (or anarcho-syndicalist) influence in the decade after 1914. In the belligerent countries of Europe this was a neglected aspect of the general collapse of the prewar left. This is usually presented primarily as a crisis of social democracy, and with much justification. At the same time it was also a crisis of the libertarian or anti-bureaucratic revolutionaries in two ways. First, many of them (e.g. among 'revolutionary syndicalists') joined the bulk of marxist social democrats in the rush to the patriotic banners - at least for a
time. Second, those who did not, proved, on the whole, quite ineffective in their opposition to the war, and even less effective at the end of the war in their attempts to provide an alternative libertarian revolutionary movement to the bolsheviks. To cite only one decisive example. In France (as Professor Kriegel has shown), the 'Carnet B' drawn up by the Ministry of the Interior to include all those 'consideres comme dangereux pour l'ordre social', i.e. 'les revolutionnaires, les syndicalistes et les anarchistes', in fact contained mainly anarchists, or rather 'la faction des anarchistes qui milite dans le mouvement syndical'. On 1 August 1914 the Minister of the Interior, Malvy, decided to pay no attention to the Carnet B, i.e. to leave at liberty the very men who, in the government's opinion, had convincingly established their intention to oppose war by all means, and who might presumably have become the cadres of a working-class anti-war movement. In fact, few of them had made any concrete preparations for resistance or sabotage, and none any preparation likely to worry the authorities. In a word, Malvy decided that the entire body of men accepted as being the most dangerous revolutionaries, was negligible. He was, of course, quite correct.
The failure of the syndicalist and libertarian revolutionaries, further confirmed in 1918-20, contrasted dramatically with the success of the Russian bolsheviks. In fact, it sealed the fate of anarchism as a major independent force on the left outside a few exceptional countries for the next fifty years. It became hard to recall that in 1905-14 the marxist left had in most countries been on the fringe of the revolutionary movement, the main body of marxists had been identified with a de facto non-revolutionary social democracy, while the bulk of the revolutionary left was anarcho-syndicalist, or at least much closer to the ideas and the mood of anarcho-syndicalism than to that of classical marxism. Marxism was henceforth identified with actively revolutionary movements,
and with communist parties and groups, or with social democratic parties which, like the Austrian, prided themselves on being markedly left wing. Anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism entered upon a dramatic and uninterrupted decline. In Italy the triumph of fascism accelerated it, but where, in the France of 1924, let alone of 1929 or 1934 was the anarchist movement which had been the characteristic form of the revolutionary left in 1914?
The question is not merely rhetorical. The answer is and must be: largely in the new communist or communist-led movements. In the absence of adequate research this can not yet be adequately documented, but the broad facts seem clear. Even some of the leading figures or well-known activists of the 'bolshevized' communist parties came from the former libertarian movements or from the militant trade union movements with their libertarian ambiance: thus in France Monmousseau and probably Duclos. This is all the more striking, since it was rather unlikely that leading members of marxist parties would be drawn from former anarcho-syndicalists, and even less likely that leading figures in the libertarian movement would opt for leninism.1 It is indeed highly likely that (as the leader of the Dutch cp, De Groot observes, perhaps not without some parti pris) that ex-libertarian workers adapted themselves better to life in the new cps than ex-libertarian intellectuals or petty bourgeois. After all, at the level of the working-class militant, the doctrinal or programmatic differences which divide ideologists and political leaders so sharply, are often quite unreal, and may have little significance, unless at this level - i.e. in the worker's specific locality or trade union - different organizations or leaders have long-established patterns of rivalry.
Nothing is more likely, therefore, than that workers previously adhering to the most militant or revolutionary union in their locality or occupation should, after its disappearance shift without much difficulty into the communist union which now represented militancy or revolutionary attitudes. When old movements disappear, such a transfer is common. The old movement may retain its mass influence here and there, and the leaders and militants who have identified themselves with it, may continue to hold it together on a diminishing scale as best they can, in so far as they do not retire de jure or de facto into an unreconciled inactivity. Some of the rank and file may also drop out. But a large proportion must be expected to transfer to the most suitable alternative, if one is available. Such transfers have not been investigated seriously, so that we know no more about what happened to ex-anarcho-syndicalists (and those who had followed their lead) than we know about ex-members or followers of the Independent Labour Party in Britain after the 1930s, or ex-communists in Western Germany after 1945.
If a large part of the rank and file of the new communist parties, and more especially, the new revolutionary trade unions, was composed of former libertarians, it would be natural to expect this to have had some effect on them. On the whole there is little sign of this within the communist parties. To take merely one representative example, the discussions on 'bolshevizing the Communist International' in the Enlarged Executive of that organization, March-April 1925, which dealt specifically with the problem of non-communist influences within the communist movement. There are little more than a half-dozen references to syndicalist and none to anarchist influence in this document.2 They are confined entirely to the cases of France, Italy and the United States. As for France, the loss 'of the larger part of the
former leading officials [of social democratic origins in Germany], and of petty-bourgeois syndicalist origins in France' is noted (p. 38). Treint reported that 'our Party has eliminated all the errors of Trotskyism: all the individualist quasi-anarchist errors, the errors of the belief in legitimacy, of the coexistence of diverse factions in the Party. It has also learned to know the Luxemburgist errors' (p. 99). The ECCI resolution recommended, as one of ten points concerning the French party 'in spite of all former French traditions, establishment of a well-organized Communist Mass Party' (p. 160). As for Italy, 'the numerous and diverse origin of the deviations which have arisen in Italy' are noted, but without reference to any libertarian trends. Bordiga's similarity to 'Italian syndicalism' is mentioned, though it is not claimed that he 'identifies himself completely' with this and other analogous views. The Marxist-Syndicalist faction (Avanguardia group) is mentioned as one of the reactions against the opportunism of the Second International, as is its dissolution 'into trade syndicalism' after leaving the party (pp. 192-3). The recruitment of the CPUSAU from two sources -- the Socialist Party and syndicalist organizations -- is mentioned (p. 45). If we compare these scattered references to the preoccupation of the International in the same document with a variety of other ideological deviations and other problems, the relatively minor impact of libertarian-syndicalist traditions within communism, or at least within the major communist parties of the middle 1920s, is evident.
This may to some extent be an illusion, for it is clear that behind several of the tendencies which troubled the International more urgently, such traditions may be discerned. The insistence of the dangers of 'Luxemburgism' with its stress on spontaneity, its hostility to nationalism and other similar ideas, may well be aimed at the attitudes of militants formed in the libertarian-syndicalist school, as also the hostility - by this time no longer a matter of very serious concern - to electoral
abstentionism. Behind 'Bordighism', we can certainly discern a preoccupation with such tendencies. In various western parties Trotskyism and other marxist deviations probably attracted communists of syndicalist origins, uncomfortable in the 'bolshevized' parties -- e.g. Rosmer and Monatte. Yet it is significant that the Cahiers du Bolchevisme (28 November 1924), in analyzing the ideological trends within the French cp, make no allusion to syndicalism. The journal divided the party into '20 per cent ofjauresism, 10 per cent of marxism, 20 per cent of leninism, 20 per cent of Trotskyism, and 30 per cent of Confusionism'. Whatever the actual strength of ideas and attitudes derived from the old syndicalist tradition, that tradition itself had ceased to be significant, except as a component of various left-wing, sectarian or schismatic versions of marxism.
However, for obvious reasons, anarchist problems preoccupied the communist movement more in those parts of the world where before the October revolution the political labour movement had been almost entirely anarchist and social democratic movements had been negligible, or where the anarcho-syndicalists maintained their strength and influence during the 1920s; as in large regions of Latin America. It is not surprising that the Red International of Labour Unions in the 1920s was much preoccupied with these problems in Latin America, or that as late as 1935 the Communist International observed that 'the remnants of anarcho-syndicalism have not yet been completely overcome' in the cp of Brazil (whose original membership consisted overwhelmingly of former anarchists). Nevertheless, when we consider the significance of anarcho-syndicalism in this continent, the problems arising from it seem to have caused the Comintern little real preoccupation after the Great Depression of 1929-30. Its chief criticism of the local communist parties in this respect appears to have been that they were unable to benefit sufficiently from the rapid decline of the
anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist organizations and the growing sympathy for communism of their members.
In a word, the libertarian movements were now regarded as rapidly declining forces which no longer posed major political problems.
Was this complacency entirely justified? We may suspect that the old traditions were stronger than official communist literature suggests, at any rate within the trade union movements. Thus it is fairly clear that the transfer of the Cuban tobacco workers' union from anarcho-syndicalist to communist leadership made no substantial difference either to its trade union activities or to the attitude of its members and militants.4 A good deal of research is needed to discover how far, in former strongholds of anarcho-syndicalism the subsequent communist trade union movement showed signs of the survival of old habits and practices.
Spain was virtually the only country in which anarchism continued to be a major force in the labour movement after the Great Depression, while at the same time communism was -- until the Civil War -- comparatively negligible. The problem of the communist attitude to Spanish anarchism was of no international significance before the second republic, and in the period of the Popular Front and Civil War became too vast and complex for cursory treatment. I shall therefore omit discussion of it.
The fundamental attitude of the bolsheviks towards anarchists thus was that they were misguided revolutionaries, as distinct from the social democrats who were pillars of the bourgeoisie. As Zinoviev put it in 1920, in discussion with the Italians who were considerably less well disposed towards their own anarchists: 'In times of revolution Malatesta is better than d'Aragona. They do stupid things, but they're revolutionaries. We fought side by side with the syndicalists and the anarchists against Kerensky and the Mensheviks. We mobilized thousands of workers in this way. In times of revolution one needs revolutionaries. We have to approach them and form a bloc with them in revolutionary periods.'5 This comparatively lenient attitude of the bolsheviks was probably determined by two factors: the relative insignificance of anarchists in Russia, and the visible readiness of anarchists and syndicalists after the October revolution to turn to Moscow, at all events until it was clear that the terms for union were unacceptable. It was no doubt reinforced later by the rapid decline of anarchism and syndicalism, which - outside a small and diminishing number of countries - made it seem increasingly insignificant as a trend in the labour movement. 'I have seen and talked to few anarchists in my life', said Lenin at the Third Congress of the ci (Protokoll, Hamburg, 1921, p. 510.) Anarchism had never been more than a minor or local problem for the bolsheviks. An official ci annual for 1922-3 illustrates this attitude. The appearance of anarchist groups in 1905 is mentioned, as is the fact that they lacked all contact with the mass
movement and were 'as good as annihilated' by the victory of reaction. In 1917 anarchist groups appeared in all important centres of the country, but in spite of various direct action they lacked contact with the masses in most places and hardly anywhere succeeded in taking over leadership. 'Against the bourgeois government they operated in practice as the "left", and incidentally disorganized, wing of the Bolsheviks.' Their struggle lacked independent significance. 'Individuals who came from the ranks of the anarchists, performed important services for the revolution; many anarchists joined the Russian cp.' The October revolution split them into 'sovietist', some of whom joined the bolsheviks while others remained benevolently neutral, and 'consequent' anarchists who rejected Soviet power, split into various and sometimes eccentric factions, and are insignificant. The various illegal anarchist groups active during the Kronstadt rising, have almost totally disappeared.6 Such was the background against which the leading party of the Comintern judged the nature of the anarchist and syndicalist problem.
It need hardly be said that neither the bolsheviks nor the communist parties outside Russia were inclined to compromise their views in order to draw the libertarians towards them. Angel Pestafia, who represented the Spanish cnt at the Second Congress of the ci found himself isolated and his views rejected. The Third Congress, which discussed relations with syndicalists and anarchists at greater length, established the distance between them and the communists even more clearly, under the impact of some trends within the communist parties and what was believed to be an increase in anarchist and syndicalist influence in Italy after the occupation of the factories.7 Lenin intervened on this point, observing that agreement with anarchists might be possible on objectives - i.e. the abolition of exploitation and
classes -- but not on principles -- i.e. 'the dictatorship of the proletariat and the use of state power during the transitional period'.8 Nevertheless, the increasingly sharp critique of anarcho-syndicalist views was combined with a positive attitude towards the movement especially in France. Even in the Fourth Congress the syndicalists were still, in France, contrasted to their advantage not only with the social democrats, but with ex-social democratic communists. 'We have to look for quite a lot of elements for a Communist Party in the ranks of the Syndicalists, in the ranks of the best parts of the Syndicalists. This is strange but true' (Zinoviev).9 Not until after the Fifth Congress -- i.e. during the period of 'bolshevization' does the negative critique of anarcho-syndicalism clearly begin to prevail over the positive appreciation of the movement -- but by then it is so far merged with the critique of Trotskyism, Luxemburgism and other intra-communist deviations as to lose its specific political point.10 By this time, of course, anarchism and syndicalism were in rapid decline, outside a few special areas.
It is therefore at first sight surprising that anti-anarchist propaganda seems to have developed on a more systematic basis within the international communist movement in the middle 1930s. This period saw the publication of the pamphlet, Marx et Engels contre I'anarchisme, in France (1935), in the series 'Elements du communisme', and an obviously polemical History of Anarchism in Russia, by E. Yaroslavsky (English edition 1937). It may also be worth noting the distinctly more negative tone of
the references to anarchism in Stalin's Short History of the CPSU (b) (1938),11 compared to the account of the early 1920s, quoted above.
The most obvious reason for this revival of anti-anarchist sentiment was the situation in Spain, a country which became increasingly important in international communist strategy from 1931, and certainly from 1934. This is evident in the extended polemics of Lozovsky which are specifically aimed at the Spanish cnt.12 However, until the Civil War the anarchist problem in Spain was considered much less urgent than the social democratic problem, especially between 1928 and the turn in Comintern policy after June-July 1934. The bulk of the references in official ci documents in this period concentrates, as might be expected, on the misdeeds of Spanish socialists. During the Civil War the situation changed, and it is evident that, for instance, Yaroslavsky's book is aimed primarily at Spain: 'The workers in those countries where they now have to choose between the doctrine of the anarchists and those of the Communists should know which of the two roads of revolution to choose.'13
However, perhaps another -- though perhaps relatively minor -- element in the revived anti-anarchist polemics should also be
noted. It is evident both from the basic text which is constantly quoted and reprinted -- Stalin's critique of Bukharin's alleged semi-anarchism, made in 1929 -- and from other references, that anarchizing tendencies are condemned primarily because they 'repudiate the state in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism' (Stalin). The classical critique of anarchism by Marx, Engels and Lenin, tends to be identified with the defence of the tendencies of state development in the Stalinist period.
To sum up:
The bolshevik hostility to anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism as a theory, strategy or form of organized movement was clear and unwavering, and all 'deviations' within the communist movement in this direction were firmly rejected. For practical purposes such 'deviations' or what could be regarded as such, ceased to be of significance in and outside Russia from the early 1920s.
The bolshevik attitude to the actual anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements was surprisingly benevolent. It was determined by three main factors:
(a) the belief that the bulk of anarcho-syndicalist workers were revolutionaries, and both objective and, given the right circumstances, subjective allies of communism against social democracy, and potential communist;
(b) the undoubted attraction which the October revolution exercised on many syndicalists and even anarchists in the years immediately following 1917;
(c) the equally unquestioned and increasingly rapid decline of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism as a mass movement in all but a very few of its old centres.
For the reasons mentioned above, the bolsheviks devoted little attention to the problem of anarchism outside the few areas in which it retained its strength (and, in so far as the local communist parties were weak, not much even within those
areas) after the early 1920s. However, the rise to international significance of Spain, and perhaps also the attempt to give a theoretical legitimation to the Stalinist development of a dictatorial and terrorist state, led to a revival of anti-anarchist polemics in the period between the Great Slump and the end of the Spanish Civil War.
(1969)
Notes
1 Of a small random sample of French communist MPS between the wars, the Dictionnaire des Parlementaires Francais 1889-1940, gives the following indications about their pre-communist past: Socialist 5; 'Sillon', then socialist 1; trade union activity (tendency unknown) 3; libertarian 1; no pre-communist past 1.
2 Bolshevising the Communist International, London, 1925.
3 'The growth of discontent among the masses and of their resistance to the attacks of the ruling classes and of imperialism have sharpened the process of disintegration among socialist, anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist organizations. In the most recent period the recognition of the need for a united front with the communists has sunk quite deep roots among rather wide strata of their rank and file. At the same time the tendency for a direct entry into the ranks of the revolutionary unions and communist parties has grown stronger (especially in Cuba, Brazil, Paraguay). After the sixth World Congress there has been a marked drop in the specific weight of anarcho-syndicalism within the labour movements of South and Caribbean America. In some countries the best elements of the anarcho-syndicalist movement have joined the Communist Party, e.g. in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Cuba [...]. In other countries the weakening of anarcho-syndicalist influence was accompanied by a strengthening of socialist and reformist organizations (Argentina), the "national-reformist parties" (Mexico, Cuba)': Die Kommunistische Internationale vor dem 7. Weltkongress, p. 472.
4 I owe this point to Miss Jean Stubbs, who is preparing a doctoral thesis on the Cuban tobacco workers.
5 P.Spriano, Storia del Partito Comunista Italiano, vol. 1, p. 77.
6 'Jahrbuch für Wirschaft, Politik und Arbeiterbewegung' (Hamburg), 1922-3, pp. 247, 250, 481-2.
7
Decisions of the Third Congress of the Communist International, London, 1921, p. 10.
8 Protokoll, p. 510.
9 Fourth Congress of the Communist International. Abridged Report. London, 1923, p. 18.
10 Cf. Manuilsky. 'We think, for instance, that so-called Trotskyism has a great deal in common with individualistic Proudhonism [. . . ] It is not by accident that Rosmer and Monatte, in their new organ directed against the Communist Party, resuscitate theoretically the ideas of the old revolutionary syndicalism, mixed with a defence of Russian Trotskyism': The Communist International, English edition, no. 10, new series, p. 58.
11 'As to the Anarchists, a group whose influence was insignificant to start with, they now definitely disintegrated into minute groups, some of which merged with criminal elements, thieves and provocateurs, the dregs of society; others became expropriators "by conviction", robbing the peasants and small townsfolk, and appropriating the premises and funds of workers' clubs; while others still openly went over to the camp of the counter-revolutionaries, and devoted themselves to feathering their own nests as menials of the bourgeoisie. They were all opposed to authority of any kind, particularly and especially to the revolutionary authority of the workers and peasants, for they knew that a revolutionary government would not allow them to rob the people and steal public property', p. 203.
12 A. Lozovsky, Marx and the Trade Unions, London, 1935 (first edn. 1933), pp. 35h5 and especially pp. 146-54.
13 Op. cit., p. 10.
|