Though there were more or less irreconcilable differences between anarchists and marxist-leninist revolutionaries at the turn of the 20th century there was also a clear understanding on Marx’s and Lenin’s side that some of the basic ideas of anarchists also formed fundamental principles of Marx theory. The gradual withering away of the state in Lenin’s ‘State and Revolution’ is probably the most striking example. Also the late writings of Marx when he got deeply interested in the rural russian peasant communes as possible avenues towards socialism without any bourgeois revolution in between - documented in letters to revolutionary Vera Zasulich, who herself was deeply involved with the anarchiost movement - suggests common elements. The syndicalist element in both Marx’s work and the anarchist movement is a strong connecting link
Though there were more or less irreconcilable differences between anarchists and marxist-leninist revolutionaries at the turn of the 20th century there was also a clear understanding on Marx’s and Lenin’s side that some of the basic ideas of anarchists also formed fundamental principles of Marx theory. The gradual withering away of the state in Lenin’s ‘State and Revolution’ is probably the most striking example. Also the late writings of Marx when he got deeply interested in the rural russian peasant communes as possible avenues towards socialism without any bourgeois revolution in between - documented in letters to revolutionary Vera Zasulich, who herself was deeply involved with the anarchiost movement - suggests common elements. The syndicalist element in both Marx’s work and the anarchist movement is a strong connecting link
Fine reflections on a fine book.
Kropotkin is one anarchist I often return to.
His essay on how Darwinian pressures can lead to cooperation can shake up one’s neurons in a useful way.
Thanks, a remarkable man.