#title On the Issue of “Revision”
#author M. Korn
#date 1925–1926
#source [[http://mariegoldsmith.uk/archives][Marie Goldsmith Project]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2023-07-18T07:41:50
#authors Marie Goldsmith, Søren Hough
#topics Russian Revolution, state power, socialism, humanism
#notes Translated by Alexandra Agranovich.
Edited by Søren Hough.
*This article is part of a translated collection published in 2023 by
the Marie Goldsmith Project. These articles were translated by Alexandra
Agranovich (Russian) and Christopher Coquard (French) and then edited by
Christopher Coquard and Søren Hough with the goal of preserving
Goldsmith’s original meaning and stylistic emphases. Modern footnotes by
the translator or editors are prefaced “Ed:” while all other footnotes
are from Marie Goldsmith. This translation was originally published in
[[https://irp.cdn-website.com/3fa68967/files/uploaded/BlackFlag-vol3-no2.pdf][Black
Flag Vol. 3 No. 2]].*
*** On the Issue of “Revision”[1]
November 1925
*It’s only the one admitting to being defeated who is defeated.*
*(Old Proverb)*
Lately, we are seeing a revision of our views — a “reassessment of
values” — across the board. This is a completely natural, even
inevitable, pursuit: our worldview is not a rigid dogma; it must develop
and transform as life goes on, and we have to be responsive to its
lessons. Besides, the Russian revolution is such an important historical
event offering us so much experience that it would be entirely
impossible not to derive anything from it and content ourselves instead
with a simple repetition of what was said ten years ago.
So, the first question that arises: does the experience of the Russian
revolution confirm or refute our main ideas? We are anarchists not (or
not only) because we find the anarchist ideal attractive, but because we
believe that it is along this path that humanity will be most successful
in moving toward free and equal communal life; for us, anarchist society
is not something that only exists as an abstract thought, but rather a
real social order, a real goal of social activity. That is why the facts
of reality are extremely important for us.
Had the experience of the Russian revolution shown that state-building,
centralization, and dictatorship were successful in putting economic
equality into practice, ensured free cultural development to everybody,
and allowed everyone to develop their spiritual faculties, we would not
have hesitated to admit to our mistake and to extend our hand to statist
socialists in order to work together. Similarly, had anarchist
activities developed in the course of the Russian revolution to an
extent sufficient to offer some experience of positive construction by
anarchist methods, those of free agreement and bottom-up organization,
and had that experience shown the inadequacy of these methods, we would
have admitted to that and started searching for other methods and
programs.
And what about now? We haven’t seen either of those outcomes. The
anarchists have had no chance to launch their program, while the statist
building methods have gone bankrupt so obviously that nobody can deny
it. “War communism” or, as Lenin put it more precisely, “state
capitalism,” has had to make every possible concession to the
bourgeoisie, since it refused to accept the methods of free
socialism.[2]
Under these circumstances, the main principles of our worldview not only
prove to be far from inconsistent in the face of these events, but draw
new strength from them. In the course of our revaluation, or revision,
these principles stay out of question, along with everything that is
inseparably connected with them, arises from them, and cannot be
detached from them. The “revision” may only have a single objective:
make *new* conclusions from the events and consecrate *new* phenomena
based on these main principles, find answers to *new* questions, and
develop, based on the experience, practical *programs* that could not be
outlined before. We are closer to real achievements now than we were
before, and this imposes on us certain obligations.
However, in our circle, a peculiar attitude has developed. Some comrades
dwell on the idea that a revolution is a complicated, difficult, long
business requiring sacrifice, associated with war, famine and various
disasters. They saw it in the past, foresee it in the future, and make a
rather unexpected conclusion: that our programmatic views are
inconsistent! As if those views were to blame for everything Russia has
suffered! Seemingly, the more complicated the task we face, the stronger
we have to adhere to the paths we believe to be right, the more we have
to the more we have to grip tighter our arms. Yet some comrades, in view
of expected difficulties, begin a “revision” of anarchism that deprives
it of any strength to fight these future dangers and brings to nought
its historical role.
It’s either one thing or the other: either a person believes that
anarchism is on the right path with regard to community building and is
more able to fight against our opponents than any other system, or they
believe that anarchism is inappropriate for this — but then, what right
do they have to call themselves anarchists?
In these discussions, two questions come to the fore above all: that of
the classes and that of the transitional period.
What is the anarchist attitude towards class struggle? In this general
form, the question gives rise to a lot of misunderstandings, especially
due to the reign of Marxist terminology.
On one hand, class struggle is a fact; on the other hand, it is the
object of theoretical reflections. As a fact, it is only denied by those
who do not see or are not willing to see the opposition of the interests
of labor and capital — of the bourgeois and the workers who still see
their masters as their benefactors. No socialist would refuse to
acknowledge the fact of class struggle and to consider the struggle
necessary. Nor, consequently, is there such an anarchist.
However, if we proceed from this basic notion common to all socialists,
it will turn out that not all socialists have the same views of *how*
the classes group and *which of them* must logically fight each other.
In Russia, the early socialism by Chernyshevsky and the Narodniks fought
mainly for the interests of the working peasants against their
exploiters — the landowners, the rich peasants, and the State.[3] Later,
Russian Social Democrats set their exclusive goal as struggle of the
newly formed urban proletariat against the bourgeoisie, shoving the
peasants aside and declaring them the petty-bourgeois element —
contrary, by the way, to Marx himself who was closer to the Narodniks[4]
in this regard. In other countries, some socialists tended to appeal not
only to the proletariat but to small owners, as well — peasants,
independent craftsmen, etc.; others rejected all except the wage
workers. Some considered the working intelligentsia to be a part of the
proletariat, others were implacable in designating them as part of the
bourgeoisie, etc. In a word, the question of what classes, beside the
proletariat, socialism can deal with remains as open as it was before.
One does not have to search for far-off examples: it is enough to look
at the daily wavering the Bolsheviks show with regard to whom they
should draw on.
What is the anarchists’ stance in these disputes? In this regard, there
has always been a radical difference between the anarchists and the
Marxists. To determine what social classes and categories they fight
for, the anarchists bring to the forefront the question of who is
oppressed and exploited in the given society. For them, liberation of
the working class as a class is *the* *primary condition of liberation
of all of humanity*. For the Marxists, the class they cast their lot
with is determined by a purely economic criterion: the class whose share
in distribution of the public product is salary, i.e., the proletariat.
As for the Marxists supporting this class’s interests, they do so
because they are convinced that it is time for the proletariat to
replace the bourgeoisie. Marx, however, expresses the idea that the
victory of the proletariat marks elimination of all classes, but
practical Marxists tend to sideline this consideration, and thus reduce
liberation of all of humanity to the replacement of one class with
another.
Those of our comrades who are going to blur our *universal humanist*
points of view over as if to the benefit of the *revolution* are deeply
mistaken. If there were a contradiction between the interests of the
*revolution* and the interests of *humanity*, it would mean that the
revolution is not necessary or is harmful — and we would not be
revolutionaries. Similarly, if there were a contradiction between the
interests of the proletariat and those of *the human person* (like the
one that exists between the interests of the individual and the
interests of the capitalist class), we would not protect the working
class. But the point is that, in every historical epoch, the oppressed
part of society aspiring for liberation was at the same time the
proponent of *universal humanist* ideals since it was forging a path to
a better future and increasing the amount of freedom in humanity. That
is why, if anybody ever represents a method of struggle harmful to the
individual as a method of serving the interest of the proletariat, we
will be able to say without any hesitation that that is a mistake, and
the tactic suggested will be in the first place harmful to the
proletariat itself. This is what happened to the “dictatorship of the
proletariat.” A group of people acting on behalf of the working class
legitimizes economic inequality, creates a politically privileged social
stratum, suppresses public initiative, eliminates the liberty of
thought, etc. The working class is thus deprived of any initiative, any
possibility of using the fruits of their revolution for their social and
spiritual development, and of building their lives on their own.
And what is the class question on “the next day” after the revolution?
On the face of it, why even speak of this: if the classes have not yet
been eliminated, then the revolution has not achieved its goal and “the
next day” has not yet come. If it has come, then all of the concerns of
this variety consist of preventing social categories from swapping
places: that is, yesterday’s paupers becoming people of wealth and vice
versa. *Such* a result is easy to obtain but is worth nothing. It may
satisfy the feeling of vengeance for a minute, but it has no social
importance. On the contrary, it is necessary to take every effort
possible to ensure that the victorious day of the revolution puts an end
to all privileged categories. In the basic matter of material needs,
there is a means to do so: *our communism*. Some comrades today have a
somewhat dismissive attitude towards our principle of “to each according
to their needs” as if it implies untold riches. No, no matter how poor
society is, it has always an opportunity to distribute fairly what
little it has, and “fairly” means *according to need*. Any other measure
of distribution will give rise to acute conflicts and enmity, and will
further complicate the already difficult situation by undermining social
solidarity *necessary* in difficult moments. New wine shouldn’t be
poured into old skins, and new life must be based on a new principle.
Only then will strength and enthusiasm arise that will be able to
overcome the obstacles; mechanical violence will yield nothing.
Next to economic privileges stand political privileges. The anarchists,
by their very nature, are “politicians,” as they place the question of
the State at the same level with that of economic reorganization. And
the question of the State is not about class: the State is associated
with one or another class so far as it protects that class’s interests;
but it may protect the interests and privileges of category rather than
of a class (such as the interests of the nobility in an estates system
and those of the clergy in a theocratic one), of a nation, even of a
single ruling party. And struggle against the State as an institution
*in general*, not against its specific form, is not done to protect any
particular class. Similarly, the sum total of moral principles included
in anarchism does not fit into the class framework. Anarchism is a class
doctrine since class struggle is present in all forms of socialism, but
anarchism adds many other things, just as valuable, to it.
In this political sphere, at a revolutionary moment, the anarchists
mainly have to fight the formation of the *non-class* State power, the
power of a social democratic (no matter Bolshevik or Menshevik) *party*
looking forward to reigning over society where everybody is the State’s
hired servant and all are equal in their dependence on the State. The
anarchists rebel against this dictatorship not in the name of class
interests, but in the name of trampled human rights. Yet, their goal is
certainly not limited to opposition against that State power: their task
is defending and implementing a transfer of all functions of the State
into the hands of voluntary public organizations. The State will only be
eliminated when it is stripped of all its socially useful functions. It
will vanish as unnecessary, since nobody will defend it if it is left
only with its policing function.
The fist step along this path is syndicalism, i.e., transferring all
industrial enterprises, transport, etc. into the hands of trade unions
and factory committees. Then, the organization of distribution follows;
it is carried out by cooperatives or other appropriate associations; the
housing problem is resolved by committees elected by all the residents
of a city, etc. In a word, a number of organizations must be created,
each having its highly specialized powers and none exceeding the scope
of its powers. The anarchists will have to work on the creation of such
organizations in every sphere of life, and later, to work in these
organizations, as far as their individual skills and capabilities
permit. Sure, that is non-partisan work, but one should bear in mind
that the success of that work, the ability of the new free institutions
to rise to the occasion, will decide the fate of the revolution itself.
And a few more words on the issue of power. Some Russian comrades
display a viewpoint, a completely new one in our movement, which
consists in a calm, moreover, conciliatory, attitude towards constraint
of freedom: freedom of thought, opinion, associations. In the name of
struggle against the counter-revolution, they start admitting that “we,”
too, should use the force of power to defeat the enemy. And it is not
the case of an armed enemy one must defend from, it’s an enemy fighting
in the sphere of ideas: by means of speech, publications, party
activities. The main truth of anarchism — that force may only be used
against an oppressive force, that thought and peaceful activity may not
be subject to any constraint — is discarded for the sake of
“practicability,” as if Russian experience has not shown a thousand
times what brilliant results these notorious practicability-based
methods bring! It’s not worth elaborating on this, or we shall be
reiterating fundamental truths that every anarchist can find in any
booklet taken from our literature.
The second question taking an important place in our “revision” is that
of the so-called “transitional” period. Much is associated with this
issue, even more than the notion itself implies. We will now look into
it.
**** Bibliography
Lenin, V. I. “Session of the All-Russia C.E.C.” Translated by Clemens
Dutt. Marxists Internet Archive, April 29, 1918. Last modified March
2002.
[[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm][marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm]].
Pipes, Richard. “Narodnichestvo: A Semantic Inquiry.” Slavic Review 23,
no. 3 (1964): 441–58.
[[https://doi.org/10.2307/2492683][DOI:~~10.2307/2492683]].
*** On the Issue of Revision — Transitional Period (Ending)[5]
January 1926
There is a lot of talk now about the impossibility of implementing the
anarchist system soon after the revolution, about the necessity of a
long transitional period, etc., and they insist that should we
acknowledge this point everything will run like clockwork; and should we
not — catastrophe will follow. What, in fact, is there to be afraid of?
One can say for sure that the anarchist ideal in its entirety will not
be implemented anywhere on the next day after the *first* *attempt* at a
social revolution, that certain experience and a certain period of
revolutionary social development will be required for that. The
anarchists have never denied this; they have always had in mind a
transitional period when speaking of the necessity to leave some
transformations to life itself and not to resort — once the soil has
already been cleared of the old oppression — to forcible imposition of
new practices.
Let’s take, for instance, the question of small peasant property. The
anarchists will never agree that a peasant who works the land by
themselves, *by* *their own labor*, be stripped of this land, and the
land be forcibly transferred to collective ownership; they will expect
that communalization of the land will take place as a result of the
comprehensive development of the spirit of free association and owing to
the example offered by prosperous agricultural communities. There will
certainly be a lot of vestiges of the past in the new society, in
economic relations, in organizational forms, and in the phenomena of
spiritual life. Thus, for example, trade unions and public associations
(cooperatives, labor exchanges and the like) took over the management of
production and product distribution; but some of them stand for
application of the communist principle “to each according to their
needs,” while others do not dare to part with the old form of labor
remuneration and product payment. Of course, the anarchists will fight
these vestiges of the past, but not by means of force. They will use
ideology, mainly, the force of *examples*: their main task will be
showing that an activity based on *their* principles will not stand to
lose and, moreover, will be more successful. That is why in the
circumstances of that new life where *free organizational experiments
are possible* the kind of work we now call “cultural” fuses and
conflates with revolutionary work, and every cultural conquest achieved
by anarchist methods will directly serve the implementation of the
anarchist social system.
The same applies to the other spheres: in organization of the school,
where the anarchists must proclaim the complete freedom to teach and of
institute any kind of school; in the sphere of religion where any
violence would be extremely contrary to the anarchist spirit; and where
the only choice is to leave everything to the natural influence of the
environment and to the achievements of intellectual development.
However, accepting the relics of the past as a necessary evil and
fighting them ideologically is one thing; elevating these relics to the
status of an inevitable developmental stage and regarding this stage as
the immediate objective of our activity — while temporarily setting
aside “impracticable” slogans — is quite another. In doing so, we forget
one more point: the best way to make our slogans truly impracticable is
to stop proclaiming them.
The existence of vestiges of the past is a necessary evil, but *it is
not the thing* one must adapt to when developing programs, because any
such adaptation will make this evil stronger and more viable. No
prediction to the effect of *at what moment* and *which part* *of* our
ideal will come true will change anything in this state of affairs. At
*every* moment, our program may only be based on *our* communism and
*our* political ideal, and afterward life itself will show us what is
impracticable at any given moment. Some allow for a longer period before
the anarchist system is implemented in full, others predict a shorter
time. Regardless, if some are more optimistic and believe the
implementation is possible immediately after the revolution, why fight
this? Where is the danger? In excessive faith? That has never seemed to
harm any cause. That faith moves mountains is not merely a phrase, same
as the notion that at a critical moment (war, revolution) the victory is
often a result of something that an impassive mind sees as impossible.
It seems we are afraid of enthusiasts, but aren’t they the ones who
drive progress — not only in society, but in science, in art —
everywhere?
There is a lot of talk of the Bolsheviks’ pragmatism, skills,
organization, etc.; they may well have all these faculties, but it is
not owing to them that they left the social mark on the Russian
revolution only a few of the other active parties aspired to leave in
1917. Soon after the October Revolution, Lenin happened to say that he
did not expect practical implementation of lawmaking, that it was enough
for him to throw slogans at the masses in that manner. And he was
absolutely right: the decrees could not have any practical value (life
is not built like that), but the principles proclaimed stuck in the mind
and paved a way for the future. There are two techniques in social
activities: setting a broad goal in anticipation that the broader it is,
the greater part of what is expected will come true, and setting goals
pre-acknowledged as attainable, to secure the achievement. The
anarchists have initially chosen the first way and discarded all the
minimum programs. The second way was that of social democratic parties.
Now it has been suggested that we set a goal of “more practicable”
requirements of a transitional period; we recollect early disputes about
minimum programs. But if back then, in peacetime, we did not consider
those programs desirable or appropriate, why should we renounce our
birthright now, after the revolution? The transitional period was
underway yesterday, still is today; what it will become tomorrow depends
on what people of conviction, people who believe in their cause, make of
it.
These are the main points of the revision taking place among our ranks.
They do not add anything new to anarchism, do not develop or improve it
in light of new facts, but, on the contrary, take a lot away. In short,
anarchism is deprived of its *soul*. Indeed, by denying the principle
“to each according to their needs,” one knocks its economic foundation,
its communism, out of it, reduces it *exclusively* to class struggle,
strips it of its philosophical worldview limiting it to purely economic
struggle, and blurs its anti-statist nature; by suggesting that we fight
for a transitional period, one takes away maximalism and introduces a
minimum program. And then — shall I mention the shame everyone of us
must feel at the thought that sometimes we may justify political
repression of our ideological opponents, even if they are downright
counter-revolutionaries? And all that is done for the sake of
practicability, feasibility, for the good of the revolution! What does
such “anarchism” amount to? A word void of any meaning — or, rather, a
word with quite a foreign meaning.
Sure, everyone has the right to acknowledge their mistakes, to change
their opinion; but, on finding one’s earlier ideas inconsistent, it
would be better and more logical not to smuggle into one’s earlier
worldview something that doesn’t fit with it at all. Some new movement
may emerge among our Russian comrades, but judging by what is shaping
up, that movement will not be anarchism. And, without any doubt, it will
be accompanied by the old, sound, and consistent anarchism that will, as
before, attract minds and spirit.
[1] Ed: Korn, M. “К Вопросу о ‘Пересмотре’ [On the Issue of Revision].”
*Дело Труда/Dielo Trouda* [*The Cause of Labor*], November 1925.
[2] Ed: Lenin proclaimed the need for state capitalism as a “step toward
socialism” in an address to the Session of the All-Russia C.E.C. on
April 29, 1918 (Lenin, “Session of the All-Russia C.E.C.”).
[3] Ed: Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1828 – 1889) was one of the founding
theorists of Narodnism, a form of Russian socialism focused on
liberating peasants from exploiter classes in favor of communal
ownership. Chernyshevsky, as well as fellow theorists like Peter
Lavrov, further believed in the role of the intelligentsia to help
lead the peasants toward these ends. (Pipes, “Narodnichestvo”). Of
note, Marie Goldsmith’s parents Isidor and Sophie were both
Narodniks and were close with Lavrov.
[4] With regard to Marx’s attitude to this controversial issue, see the
extremely interesting article by [Vladimir Mikhailovich] Zenzinov,
“The Lost Scroll” in *Sovremennye Zapiski* (*Contemporary
Writings*), No. 24.
[5] Ed: Korn, M. “К Вопросу о Пересмотре — Переходный Период (Окончание)
[On the Issue of Revision — Transitional Period (Ending)].” *Дело
Труда/Dielo Trouda* [*The Cause of Labor*], January 1926.