Introduction
Anarchism wants to transform the present bourgeois capitalist society into a society which assures the workers the products of their labours, their liberty, independence, and social and political equality. This other society will be libertarian communism, in which social solidarity and free individuality find their full expression, and in which these two ideas develop in perfect harmony.
– Dielo Truda
To most people, the phrase “libertarian communism” would elicit laughter, and the phrase “anarchist-communism” would most likely elicit confusion. The militant anti-fascist movement, more commonly known as antifa, has been gaining more and more attention from the mainstream press. Though militant anti-fascists are mostly being portrayed negatively by the mainstream media, being portrayed as a bunch of young, mindless thugs who want to attack anyone they disagree with, this attention has brought with it an increased interest in the ideas that so many participants in antifa take influence from: anarchist-communism. Anarchist-communism is used more or less as a synonym for libertarian communism, or libertarian socialism.
Though the phrase “libertarian” conjures up images of free markets, deregulation, and abject poverty, the fact of the matter is that the original libertarians were socialists. Libertarianism to libertarian communists and libertarian socialists, and has since it was coined BY a communist (Joseph Déjacque) to describe his politics, actually refers to the coherency of means and ends with respect to a socialist society. Before the term “socialism” came to refer to both bureaucratic regimes that centrally planned the economy, and welfare capitalist states in Europe, socialism referred to a classless, stateless, and self-managed society. Likewise, before the equation in many people’s minds of communism with state capitalist regimes like the USSR and China, communism referred to both a class, stateless, moneyless society, in which goods are produced in common, owned in common, and distributed based on need. Libertarian communists view such a society as desirable, and actively work to make it a reality. What sets libertarian communists apart from authoritarian communists is that libertarian communists understand that such a society has to be built from below by the people oppressed by capitalism, and not decreed from above by a government. This is where the coherency of means and ends comes in, libertarian communists want a self-managed and self-determining society, and we wish to build such a society by means of a self-managed social movement of the oppressed and exploited under capitalism that seeks self-determination for all.
What this means is that libertarian communists believe that communism, a classless, stateless, society based on common ownership, self-management, and distribution based on need can only be the result of a self-managed struggle of the oppressed and exploited under capitalism. What does this mean concretely? Is this practical? Even possible? Libertarian communists say yes. Libertarian communists say that the oppressed and exploited masses can take society into their own hands, can dismantle oppressive and exploitative social relations, and replace our current society with a self-managed and free society. The German Jewish anarchist Gustav Landauer said it best:
The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships.
The “Real Movement”
Like socialism in general, and like all other social movements, anarchy was born amongst the people, and it will maintain its vitality and creative force only as long as it remains a movement of the people.
-Peter Kropotkin
Anarchism is not a beautiful utopia, nor an abstract philosophical idea, it is a social movement of the labouring masses.
-Dielo Truda
Libertarian communists believe that the idea of an anarchist-communist society, a society based on the abolition of all oppressive and exploitative social relations, in which labor is done to uphold and enrich the community instead of a boss, and in which goods are distributed based on need, did not come about because of the realization from a group of social theorists, but instead came about because of the daily struggles of oppressed and exploited people! The Dielo Truda (Workers’ Cause) group in France elaborated on this in their famous pamphlet, The Organization Platform of the Libertarian Communists:
The class struggle created by the enslavement of workers and their aspirations to liberty gave birth, in the oppression, to the idea of anarchism: the idea of the total negation of a social system based on the principles of classes and the State, and its replacement by a free non-statist society of workers under self-management.
So anarchism does not derive from the abstract reflections of an intellectual or a philosopher, but from the direct struggle of workers against capitalism, from the needs and necessities of the workers, from their aspirations to liberty and equality, aspirations which become particularly alive in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the working masses.
The outstanding anarchist thinkers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and others, did not invent the idea of anarchism, but, having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and spread it.
So anarchism, libertarian communism, or whatever you choose to call it, isn’t a rigid dogma that is blindly followed by its adherents, but is a social movement that seeks the abolition of oppressive structures like class society, the state, and capitalism. It is a social movement that doesn’t limit itself to these things, but also to the horrors that result from them, such as racism, colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, and ableism. Libertarian communists view libertarian communism as being prefigured by struggles against oppression all throughout human history, from the French Revolution, to slave revolts in the American south, to the anti-colonial revolts in ancient Mesopotamia.
Libertarian communists see these events, and similar events, and see a tendency within human history towards a free society, towards solidarity, freedom, and the creative desire of the oppressed and exploited to destroy whatever hinders the free development of these things. Libertarian communists believe that it is possible for these principles to move beyond being vague aspirations of a minority of oppressed and into being the guiding principles of movements of the oppressed, who, in realizing their creative and collective power, take their own lives and society into their own hands, and make them into the tangible foundations for social life.
Some more recent events and experiments that libertarian communists point to as being part of this tendency for a free society include but are certainly not limited to: the Makhnovist movement in Ukraine during the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Revolution as part of the Spanish Civil War, the Shinmin commune during the Japanese occupation of Korea, the Zapatista uprising in the aftermath of the imposition of NAFTA on the indigenous communities in Mexico, and the Rojava revolution in northern Syria. These events, though localized and, in many cases, short-lived, show that the masses taking control of society is a possibility. With international organizing and international solidarity, far more is possible.
The Theoretical Basis
Revolutions cannot succeed if they have no guiding lights, no immediate objectives.
-Friends of Durruti
The relation of revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice to libertarian communists is that these two things are inseparable. As a result of their struggle and their practice, the participants in the libertarian communist movement produce revolutionary theory based on their understanding of the world, and on their understanding of the effects that their practice has on the world. With this revolutionary theory, libertarian communists can better improve their practice, which will in turn lead to improved revolutionary theory.
The theoretical tradition of libertarian communism begins with the codification of anarchism as a distinct social movement in the 19th century. Though they were not libertarian communists, thinkers like Proudhon, Bakunin, Guillaume, and others contributed greatly to libertarian communism and prefigured it before it emerged as a distinct tendency and social movement. The main classical theoreticians of libertarian communism include the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin and the Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta. Besides these two, there is a large number of theorists, activists, and revolutionaries who also left their mark on the anarchist movement, a small number of which include Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, G.P. Maximoff, Sam Dolgoff, Murray Bookchin, Nestor Makhno, Kuwasi Balagoon, Lorenzo Ervin, and countless more.
Because of the different conditions that these revolutionaries found themselves in, as well as the changing conditions of social life, the theoretical basis of anarchism can’t be understood as a dogma, but as more of a collective pond of knowledge and experience, from which there’s as much to accept and learn from as there is to reject and criticize. A popular example is the tendency towards class reductionism and ignoring the struggles of women, colonized and racialized people, and LGBT people, verses the tendency towards a (correct) understanding of anarchism as a self managed struggle of all oppressed peoples against oppression. The natural extension of the latter tendency is an understanding that oppressed communities, especially racialized and colonized communities, need to produce their own leaders, need to take their own communities and their own lives into their own hands, and need to build a free society in solidarity with all other oppressed groups from the ground up.
When libertarian communists talk about freedom, or liberty, it is not meant to refer to some vague abstraction like these concepts are under capitalism. Freedom to libertarian communists is a very tangible thing: the ability to freely develop fully as a human being, as part of a community of equals with the same ability to freely develop. There would be no ghettos, occupied by the police. The open air prisons known as “reservations” would no longer exist. People would have access to the medical care that they need, and trans people would no longer have to suffer in poverty, unable to access the medical care that we need. People would no longer be forced to sell their ability to work to someone who couldn’t care less about them. Labor in such a society would be creative and constructive, it would be for the good of all, voluntary, and would otherwise be integrated into an individual’s daily routine. People would have genuine control over their communities, their work, their relationships, and every other aspect of their lives.
Conclusion
…Only anarchy points the way along which they can find, by trial and error, that solution which best satisfies the dictates of science as well as the needs and wishes of everybody. How will children be educated? We don’t know. So what will happen? Parents, pedagogues and all who are concerned with the future of the young generation will come together, will discuss, will agree or divide according to the views they hold, and will put into practice the methods which they think are the best. And with practice that method which in fact is the best will in the end be adopted. And similarly with all problems which present themselves.
-Errico Malatesta
It doesn’t take much observation to know that we as oppressed and exploited people have dark days ahead. Climate change, rising far right nationalism, and an increasingly bleak economic situation have the potential to cause death and destruction unparalleled in human history. Anarchism and libertarian communism may not be perfect, or flawless, but it does give us the framework to properly understand our problems and to solve our problems. Capitalism and the state cannot solve our problems. They cannot free us or save us from what’s coming. All we can do to save ourselves is to organize together, and to build a better world together.
Though the world has the potential to be destroyed in the coming decades, the Spanish anarchist and revolutionary Buenaventura Durruti said it best when he said:
For you must not forget that we can also build. It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute.
Further Reading
Classical Introductions:
What is Authority? Mikhail Bakunin
Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles, Peter Kropotkin
Modern Introductions:
An Anarchist View of the Class Theory of the State, Wayne Price
Who are the Anarchists and What do They Want?, Thomas Giovanni
Socialism Will Be Free, Or it Will Not Be at All, Arthur Pye
Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, Daniel Guerin