The development of the labor movement in most of the countries following the dissolution of the First International places into sharp relief the baneful influence – tactical and political – which authoritarian socialism – whether reformist or pseudo-revolutionist – exercised over the proletarian movement. Taking part in the politics of the bourgeois state has not brought the working class one inch nearer to true socialism, but on the contrary, it lost in dynamic power and importance because of it. The old saying, “he who dines with the Pope dies from it,” has been fully confirmed in this case. One who is drawn in by the gear of the state machinery is destroyed by it, parliamentary activity having gradually undermined the labor and the socialist movement, destroying in the first place its faith in the necessity of creative and independent action, and imbuing it with the belief that its salvation may come from above. The consequences of this delusion have become clear more than ever since the war, especially in Germany, where it struck deep roots. So that even a bourgeois paper like the Frankfurter Zeitung could write with reason that until now no revolution was so poverty-stricken in its ideas as the November revolution of Germany. There was not the slightest tinge of any great ideas – economic or political; it was a collapse of a labor movement in spite of the millions of workers organized politically and in the trade unions, and the slow but ceaseless process of sliding down toward the present Fascism, against which it did not even make an attempt to defend itself. The engrafting of the labor movement upon the state and its sinking to the position of a mere tool of the latter could not but lead to these results.

One of the main causes of the prevailing confusion of ideas is this fallacious conception of the relative value of the State, a conception which leads people to ignore the role of the political factors of state power in history. Under the influence of the Marxist dogma about the decisive importance of the given conditions of production, there has come to prevail the view which considers the various forms of the state and its apparatus as the political and legal complements of a certain economic structure, a view according to which the economic structure “gives the key to all social phenomena.” But in reality each chapter of history gives us a thousand examples how because of certain forms of state power the economic evolution may be turned backwards or imprisoned in certain retrograde forms for several centuries.

And do we not now see how the State completely closes the way out of the present crisis and delivers the future of great countries to generals, politicians and adventurers. Another proof is given us by Bolshevist Russia in which a party drunk with power has to the last moment blocked economic rebuilding upon the basis of true socialism, and has thrown the country into a state of slavery, chaining it to a state capitalism, whose far-reaching consequences for the future of Europe have hardly been realized by the proletariat. Two distinct conceptions of socialism manifest themselves in the aspirations of the working class. They played a great role in the past, but in the near future they will have a more decisive importance. Economic equality is not identical with social enfranchisement. Even in monasteries, prisons and barracks, there is a certain degree of economic equality: dwellings, uniforms, food, equal service. The old Inca state and the Jesuitic state of Paraguay succeeded in establishing a regimented equality for all the inhabitants of the country, in spite of which there reigned the worst of despotism, the individual being but an automaton obedient to the superior will. That is why socialism without liberty would be the worst slavery imaginable. ‘The impulses of social justice will assert themselves fully if rooted in the libertarian sentiment of humanity. That is, “socialism will be free, or there will be none”. The right to exist on the part of the I. W. M. A. finds its deepest justification in the fact that it acknowledged and accepted all those principles. The struggle developed between the Socialists and the Bolshevists, despite its seemingly violent nature, is of no basic importance, and this will continue to be so in so fur as the Russian government will see in the foreign Communist parties a fit instrument of its foreign policy. Socialists and Communists hold the same position and their tactical methods differ but little. Both rely heavily upon the state apparatus and both aspire to a form of society which could be called State Capitalism. The declaration made by the leaders of the Austrian Social-Democracy confirm this opinion. That is why we should not be misled by the clamorous, superficial and purely fraternal struggle. Even the fight between the Lassaleans and the Marxists was not carried on without white gloves. The question is whether they have any common basis for fusion, and as to this, there can be no doubt.

But less than ever does such a common basis exists now for the I. W. M. A. For never did Libertarian Socialism have so much moral significance as now, when the whole world is swept by a furious reaction which finds ifs support not only in governmental circles, but which permeates deeply the broad masses of the population. The most terrible evil of our age is not the political reaction menacing society in the form of fascism; the greatest danger is the spiritual reaction due to which men become imbued with the principles of fascism. That is why the slightest concession made to fascist nationalism and to Russian State Capitalism means that true socialism is losing ground; that is why it becomes a betrayal of human liberty a stub in the back to the revolution of the future.

While the I. W. M. A. remains true to this anti-authoritarian conception of socialism, its existence is more than justified, is of the most urgent necessity, whether the number of its adherents be small or large as compared with the other movements and tendencies. The spirit of an organization is of greater importance than members; what is of importance above all is that which signalizes the future, which arouses all the despised and humiliated to the realization that it is by thew own efforts that they will be able to enter upon the road leading to free socialism.

The I. W. M. A. does not promise the poor of the earth any paradise, the doors of which will open without any struggle. Rights do not fall down like over-ripe fruits; they are won after a long struggle, by tireless work, by aiming firmly at the ultimate goal of our aspirations. And just as the organization of a new society can be done by workers themselves only, no state being equal to this task, so can there be only one effective method of struggle against economic and political oppression: direct action.

These methods are not secondary in their nature, something to be determined by circumstances only. The latter may decide the external forms of these methods, but not its character in itself. The methods of a movement always flow from its aims and principles. The one that considers political power as the necessary premise for the realization of socialism cannot but be drawn into the every-day political life of the state. But he who understands that the ultimate aim of socialism cannot be the conquest, but the elimination of all authority from the life of society, he must follow other roads in his struggle for daily bread and for every shred of liberty, since he knows that all rights attained are wrested in the struggle and not given as state charity. What is important for the worker is not the seizure of the state, but the seizure of the land and factories, building up a society in which there will be no exploitation, no oppression of man by man. This is the ultimate goal, this is the road followed by the I. W. M. A., an organization which does not serve a party or the state. It is not the instrument of a new dictatorship which cannot but lead to the establishment of a new caste and placing new obstacles on the road of the workers’ emancipation.

Five years of economic depression have produced a profound change in the attitude of large sections of our population toward the economic and political structure of American society. Millions of people are now more or less permeated with the feeling that the old “laissez-faire” system will never solve the problems of unemployment and poverty. They are dimly conscious of the fact that some fundamental change must take place.

As an offsetting tendency to these deep popular stirrings, we can observe the signs of an inevitable fascist counter current. And contributing directly toward this tendency is the attempt of certain liberals to convert our present economic society into that of State Capitalism while leaving political democracy intact. They do not realize that giving the state more and more power over the economic life of the people prepares the ground for Fascism. They wish to save political democracy but have no effective way of doing it, since they do not realize that a concentration of economic power in the hands of the state would be impossible without a like concentration of political power. What safeguards can they propose to prevent the state from overstepping the bounds of economic dictatorship? How can they prevent the infiltration of dictatorship into every phase of life?

Because of a shrinkage in the foreign market, American capitalism tends to become more nationalistic. It is compelled to derive its nourishment by a more intensive exploitation of the workers at home. In its quest for the ever-shrinking foreign market it is preparing to wrest it from other powers who are in a similar position. This leads to war. These two tendencies, a growing nationalism, and a belligerent imperialism are outstanding characteristics of fascism.

The declining standard of living, the increasing discontent of the workers is shown by the wave of strikes, and the fear of more serious outbreaks, increase and solidify the reaction. The repressive organs of the state tend to increase. Democratic rights are curtailed, and the radical movement becomes subject to more intensive persecution.

A large and discontented middle class which is rapidly being shaken from its economic foundations by finance capital and big industry, may look to fascism as a way out. Those who, like the liberals, are inclined to exaggerate the potency of the democratic traditions in the U.S. should note such organizations (middle class in interests) as the K.K.K., the “vigilantes”, the American Legion (who were given 75,000 rifles by the government), and other veteran organizations. Let them remember that the “sunny” South, land of race hatred and lynching, will extend a hearty welcome to the fascists (witness Huey Long).

The Pacific Coast is noted for its fascist inclinations, the Criminal Syndicalist laws, the Everett Massacre, the Centralia Case, the Mooney-Billings frame-up, the recent San Francisco murders, etc. The notorious anti-red raids under Palmer and Mitchell, the mass deportation of workers (which is still going on), the Sacco-Vanzetti murders, all go to show to what lengths a hysterical and blood thirsty bourgeoisie will go. There is plenty of hatred for foreigners, Jews, Catholics, negroes, and radicals among the Jingos and Babbitts. The innumerable fascist organizations springing up throughout the land find ready recruits among these elements.

We have also to reckon with the yellow press (a la Hearst), the Boy Scouts, the pulpit, the radio, the chambers of commerce. All these agencies are constantly spitting their venom, preparing the ground for fascism. The Civilian Conservation Corps directed by army officers, the transient camps, etc. may well become the American prototype of Hitler’s concentration camps and forced labor hells.

It is evident that what is left of the American democratic traditions will not of itself be able to counteract the tremendous pressure of the forces that are making for fascism in this country. The real reasons for this feeble development of fascism ([instead} of the spectacular, openly murderous German, or Italian variety) here are: first the rule of American capitalism is not as yet being seriously challenged by any revolutionary movement; second, there is the possibility of the gradual growth of a more subtle type of fascism, that is, an extremely nationalistic state capitalism without most of the superficial aspects of German or Italian fascism. For, the democratic illusions of the American people, which are much stronger than the degree of democracy existing would warrant, make it easier for the dominant group of capitalists to utilize the present political structure for instituting step by step their “corporate state”, to pass law after law which, directly or indirectly, will deprive labor of whatever rights it now possesses in order to be able to lower wages, which will give even greater monopolistic powers to small groups of capitalists (note the effects of the N.R.A.) and finally to the reactionary point of self-sufficiency.

Fascism threatens when the ruling class can no longer exist side by side with a revolutionary mass movement. It then becomes necessary for the reaction to put an end to political democracy and destroy the labor movement. The capitalist class can then function only as a dictatorship by incorporating itself with the state.

When the contradictions of capitalism have reached the breaking point, when it can no longer make concessions to the starving and rebellious masses, a decisive battle between the revolutionists and reactionaries becomes inevitable. The conflict can end in only one way—either fascism or the social revolution.

American capitalism has not yet reached this point. It is wealthy and one can still make concessions—but it cannot continue to do so indefinitely. It cannot lower the standard of living without generating a revolutionary movement, without protests and uprisings. Toledo, Minneapolis, San Francisco and the Gulf have shown the American worker will fight. The fighting traditions of the American Labor movement will be revived. A series of mass movements will be the answer to the assaults upon the standard of living. All the pent up bitterness and discontent of the worker will explode.

To hasten the growth of effective mass movements, to crystalize and strengthen them for the social revolution is the great task of the revolutionary vanguard.1

Unfortunately there is no revolutionary movement of any importance in this country. The socialists are class collaborators and their parliamentary twaddle, their disgusting opportunism was responsible to a large degree for fascism in Germany. The Communists do not believe in, nor do they practice, workers’ democracy. Their autocratic methods, their policy of Rule or Ruin, has brought great harm to the labor movement both here and abroad. They aim to subjugate the labor movement to a party bureaucracy. They lead the workers to think only in terms of Dictatorship, thereby prejudicing them against democracy.

The revolutionary movement in America has yet to be built. The mind of the American workers must be conditioned against any and all dictatorships. The democratic traditions of the American people must be used to show that only a workers’ democracy can prevent Fascism, that only the democratic economic organizations of the workers, such as revolutionary industrial unions, can combat Fascism. The experiences of the proletariat in Italy, in Germany and in Spain must be related to them to show the value of direct action and the futility of parliamentary tactics and political parties as a means of fighting against Fascism.

A united front of all those who believe in workers’ democracy as opposed to authoritarian socialism and to the domination of the labor movement by a political party must be formed. A realistic approach to the practical problems of organization must be worked out and a revolutionary program with direct action tactics and consistent with workers’ democracy and the ultimate aim of socialization of industry and the abolition of the political state must be developed. And, armed with such a program, we can indeed prepare ourselves for the fight against Fascism.

• 1The term “vanguard” is intended to indicate the most militant and direct action-oriented workers, not a dictatorial party formation of the Marxist-Leninist type.

EDIT. NOTE: The emergence of the anarcho syndicalist movement of Spain as a first-rate revolutionary power brought to the foreground the question of working out a constructive program for the libertarian movement. A powerful organization like the C.N.T., which may soon be placed in the position of responsibility, cannot confine itself to slogans of a mere negative nature. It has to envisage the problems of revolutionary construction for the very near future. And what faces the anarchist movement of Spain as a present day actuality may emerge as such in the not too distant future for the libertarian movement of other countries where the bankruptcy of the authoritarian communists is bound to result in an active effort to solve the revolutionary problems along the road of libertarian communism.

We therefore welcome the attempt made by comrade Cornelissen to place the problem of a constructive libertarian program before the attention of our movement. Not being in full agrcement with all the tenets of comrade Cornelissen, (thus we believe the idea of functional decentralization is not sufficiently emphasized, while the idea of communal (territorial) autonomy is given a much too preponderant place in his political scheme, leading as it does to the idea of national independence with the dangerous and non anarchistic implications of national sovereignty), we still believe that the presentation of his views is of timely interest to all those who wish to see the rebirth of a vigorous libertarian movement based upon a realistic approach to the problems of revolutionary struggle and reconstruction. In our coming issues we shall take up those very issues at greater length trying to bring before the readers the opinions of outstanding leaders of libertarian thought.

During the first forty years of its existence, libertarian propaganda was distinguished by its strictly negative character. The anarchists declared themselves against the state, against Religion and Church, against Capitalism, and likewise against all forms of domination over the working masses by the representatives of the three above mentioned powers. They were anti-parliamentarian, anti-reformist, anti-syndicalist and in fact against all organization. In a word, they were more or less "anti-everything"

During this period they adopted the terroristic methods of the Russian nihilists upheld in western Europe by the propaganda of men like Bakunin and for a time by men like Elisee Reclus and Peter Kropotkin.1

In western Europe this period of basically negative propaganda reached its highest point at the time of the individualist terrorist acts of 1893-94 and the "trial of the thirty" in Paris. I recall having been present during this period at meetings where comrades seriously discussed the question of whether it was right to have a chairman at an anarchist meeting2 and whether the whole idea of definite organization was not a violation of individual liberty.

But, we began to observe that after several decades of negative propaganda, even our most ardent comrades were beginning to ask for positive measures and constructive propaganda. The latter, they complained, was being monopolized by the social-democrats and the cooperative movement. Anarchist journals were gradually losing their readers, sales of pamphlets decreased.

At the beginning of the twentieth century it was noted that the interest of the man on the street in anarchism had begun to wane. He would say that it mattered little that the anarchists were against everything; he wanted to know what thcy were for...

The highpoint of this negative period was reached prior to the outbreak of the World War. It was, however, the war, its aftermath and the Russian Revolution which administered the "coup de grace" to this type of propaganda. Although necessary at the beginning of our movement, negative propaganda has gradually become an obstacle to its further development. The World War, the Russian Revolution and the advent of Fascism in Italy, Germany, Poland and Hungary have demonstrated to all those whose eyes were open to realities that we must have at our command strongly organized forces directed toward a well defined goal, if we are to achieve anything of lasting human value. The present world crisis has added the finishing touches to the lessons already learned by revealing to us the basic forces in society which cannot be combatted by sheer visions and dreams of a far off world to come.

The modern libertarians recognize all the advantages of modern machine methods: they detest the miseries of the old fashioned domestic labor. They realize that in the production of articles of major importance (coal, iron, steel, oil, rubber paper, glass, lumber, cereals, cotton, wool, silk, etc.) the growth of large scale industry is inevitable: it is a necessary concomitant of technological progress.

As long as men want to live decently, to be well fed, well clothed and properly housed, as long as everybody wants to make use of rapid means of communication, it becomes necessary to produce consumption goods in mass quantities and to organize our life in such a complex fashion which makes the satisfaction of the needs of the community utterly beyond the reach of small associations of artisans.

If everybody wants to travel and to go to the movies, it will be necessary to construct railways, street cars and automobiles and to produce films.

The task of the destruction of the present social order is being performed for the most part by the present system itself: the narrow egoism, the errors and the crimes of the capitalists are doing this work. The real test for us revolutionaries will come afterwards when we shall inherit the disorder and misery left to us and shall have to construct the new world.

While cleaving to the basic ideal of liberty, the libertarian communists have been obliged to accept the principle of the necessity of local, national and international organization. In these organizations they still maintain the principle of free federation, the autonomy of various groups in their local propaganda, and the liberty of individuals in the groups themselves as long as this liberty does not interfere with the activities of the other members or of the whole group. Likewise, concerning social life in general and the carrying out of any economic or political act, the modern libertarian communist defends the liberty of each individual in actions which concern him or her alone. He also defends the autonomy of communes and regions in any action which is not incompatible with the needs of national and international life. Finally, he defends the liberty of each nation to govern itself as a part of the United Nations of the World.

The libertarian communists of Europe have declared themselves against all forms of fascism-red, black or brown. All dictatorships in effect become social systems directed from above, founded on the exploitation and militarization of the working masses. The libertarian communists favor a democratic order directed from the bottom up, in whích each indívidual maintains his liberty of thought and action.

The modern libertarian communists have, in the sphere of economics, broken definitely with the principle, formerly so popular in our movement, of the free association of small groups of comrades toiling as artisans in industry or tilling the soil with spade and pick-axe. They do not want to go back to the Middle Ages.

They realize that the methods of the hand craftsman can be used today only in a very few industries, such as the production of some luxury articles or in repair work. In agriculture the old methods can be used only for some forms of horticulture, truck gardening and the higher grades of vine culture.

The modern libertarians recognize all the advantages of modern machine methods: they detest the miseries of the old fashioned domestic labor. They realize that in the production of articles of major importance (coal, iron, steel, oil, rubber paper, glass, lumber, cereals, cotton, wool, silk, etc.) the growth of large scale industry is inevitable: it is a necessary concomitant of technological progress.

As long as men want to live decently, to be well fed, well clothed and properly housed, as long as everybody wants to make use of rapid means of communication, it becomes necessary to produce consumption goods in mass quantities and to organize our life in such a complex fashion which makes the satisfaction of the needs of the community utterly beyond the reach of small associations of artisans.

If everybody wants to travel and to go to the movies, it will be necessary to construct railways, street cars and automobiles and to produce films.

The task of the destruction of the present social order is being performed for the most part by the present system itself: the narrow egoism, the errors and the crimes of the capitalists are doing this work. The real test for us revolutionaries will come afterwards when we shall inherit the disorder and misery left to us and shall have to construct the new world.

Since the working masses are at present nowhere quite ready (technologically) to undertake the management of industries - especially large scale and medium sized industries - the modern libertarian communists have united with the revolutionary syndicalists in an attempt to effect as soon as possible cooperation between workers and technicians in leaning how to manage the industries in which they work. This will be an indispensable training school for the organization of the technical cadres, which in the future will have to take over the management of the expropriated industries.

Inasmuch as they are communists (in the broad sense of the term-ed.) the modern libertarians insist more than ever before upon the necessity of socialized property.

The society following our present capitalist order will also be based upon the commune, i. e. upon urban and rural municipalities, and in modern countries all land and houses will become social property, to be administered by the commune.

The commune will have an ample supply of the resources necesssary to fill the storehouses of the regional and national administrations, to guarantee to all the inhabitants of their respective territories the prime necessaries of life (food, working clothes and lodging will be given free to everybody) and to undertake the education of children and the upkeep of hospitals, scientific and cultural institutions, museums, etc.

Land and houses having become communal property, lent to the inhabitants who will pay no rent or taxes for them, it will be impossible for those who have hoarded money to invest it in real estate or to lend money for interest, because credit will be free under the control of the commune.

In the political sphere, the defects of parliamentarism have been amply revealed in all modern nations. Although the political system may vary from country to country, it seems that, for the most part, it will take the form of a National Assembly of Producers working together with and checked by a Congress of Consumers. The make-up of the former can indeed be modeled after the "soviets" as they were functioning in Russia before the Communist Party distorted them by its party monopoly. The representatives to the Congress of Consumers will be elected by all adult inhabitants of the country, male and female, who were born there or have lived there a specified length of time.

• 1It is well known though that during the last few years of his life Kropotkin worked in Dmitrov on a constructive project of social organízation, based on the principles of federalism and modern revolutionary syndicalism.
• 2It is still done in this country.

The triumph of fascism in Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and the growing influence of the movement throughout the world, the threat of another catastrophic world war, have shocked millions of workers everywhere into the realization that their hope for a better future is at stake. The defeat of the workers in fascist countries has taught the workers the necessity for united action against the common danger. Therefore the question of the united front has become one of tremendous importance in the present crisis. What should be the aims of the united front? How to achieve these aims? Without a clear answer to these crucial questions all attempts as unity will fail. Fascism and war will be the direct consequence of such a failure.

It is obvious that fascism will not be exterminated by a set of pious resolutions but demands the most drastic action of aroused proletarian and peasant masses. Only a power great enough to uproot the military dictatorship, to expropriate the industries, annihilate everyone of the old entrenched institutions and props of the capitalist terror, will ever be able to extirpate the fascist menace. The regime of force will yield only to the superior force of the social revolution. To the counter-revolution must be opposed the gigantic powers which only the social revolution can generate. This must be the goal of the united front. All policies, every action undertaken must be orientated on the basis of preparing the ground for social revolution.

By failing to apply that standard the Second and Third Internationals have clearly demonstrated their complete bankruptcy in the face of the most crucial period in the history of the revolutionary movement. They are calling upon the masses to unite with their bourgeois-democratic masters in order to fight fascism. They are urging the workers to fight shoulder to shoulder with French Imperialist democracy. This slogan is based upon the stupid assumption that the bourgeois-democratic countries, owing to their democratic traditions, will not follow the example of Germany or Italy.

The liberties that were conquered by the masses in centuries of struggle must be preserved and extended. It is bourgeois democracy itself that is an obstacle in the way of fuller expansion of liberty in the economic and social life of mankind. That is why capitalist democracy has to be transcended by the socialist movement. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity have yet to be established by the social revolution.

Fascism is not an accidental phenomena: it is the form taken by a decaying capitalism desperately clinging to its power and therefore resorting to terror and dictatorship. It is a development that is taking place in all capitalist countries, the democratic ones included. Because they were the weakest links in the capitalist chain, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, etc., capitulated first. The democratic countries are about to capitulate now and their democratic traditions are being swept away by the powerful current of fascist reaction.

France is ripe for fascism. The Croix du Feu and other fascist organizations, with the assistance of the government, await only a war to consolidate their power and establish the French variety of fascism. The government is honeycombed with fascist influences. Many of the high army officials are fascists themselves. To call upon the workers and peasants to fight in a "Holy" war against fascist countries with this semi-fascist apparatus is to call for the militarization of France.

The suicidal theory of the lesser Evil is based upon faith in capitalist democracy. The application of this theory in Germany was to a large extent responsible for fascism. The logic of the united front as it is being practiced in France is bound to lead to the same capitulation before the objective demands of a decaying capitalist economy.

In calling for the United Front, neither the communists nor the social-democrats are fulfilling any of the necessary prerequisites for genuine revolutionary action. They are neither ideologically nor tactically capable of leading the working class in the direction of militant and effective struggle. The principle of supporting bourgeois democracy is a negation of the class struggle and the social revolution. The class struggle means to our would-be leaders the struggle of political parties for State power. The masses, misled by the chimera of a peaceful coalition with the bourgeoisie, meaningless resolutions and parliamentary actions, have allowed their economic organizations to become footballs of the politicians. Robbed of their initiative, unschooled in revolutionary principles and tactics, the workers are rendered incapable of fighting fascism and preventing war. The united front of opportunism between the social patriots of 1914 and the new social patriots of 1935 is the kind of an united front which spells doom for the workers and certain victory for the fascist. Only in the process of struggle for clear cut revolutionary objectives, can the indispensable militancy and experience of the oppressed masses be developed and the necessary power generated for the supreme effort. To build the united front of workers' and peasants' organizations through militant revolutionary action, to struggle for the social revolution – permeated with the principles and spirit of libertarian communism – these are the tasks of the revolutionary movement

Hardly any other idea advanced by the anarchist thinkers was met with as much derision in socialist circles as the idea of free communes, viewed as the nuclei of a new social order federated along political and economic lines. To the great majority of socialists, who fully accepted the political premises of capitalism and who came to regard the latter’s centralizing tendencies in the economic field as the necessary prerequisite of Socialism, this emphasis upon political and economic decentralization was to be interpreted in terms of social psychology rather than social theory. To them it was a romantic escape into an idealized past, rationalized by the ideologists of a class which is being displaced by modem economic tendencies and whose inverted social vision has become strongly colored with nostalgic longings for an historically doomed pattern of life.
That there was a solid theoretical foundation to the anarchist ideal of free communes could hardly be gathered from the polemic writings of the Socialist theoreticians, all bent more upon lambasting this idea than taking up its theoretical challenge. How serious this challenge was, is proven by the fact that the sundry elements which went into the building up of this theoretical structure— and taking into consideration the pioneering nature of this work, the structure could not but be loose in many respects, abounding in brilliant generalizations from inadequate factual material—were independently developed by the respective branches of social science along lines laid down by the anarchist thinkers.
Thus the theoretical analysis of the role of the association in social life, first undertaken by Proudhon, has been furthered by the pluralists, the most progressive school of political science, whose conclusions in respect to the State lend themselves to the ideal of an ex-territorial commune as envisaged by Bakunin, Kropotkin and Reclus. The historic potentialities of the medieval city as a distinct political structure, first revealed to the modem view by Kropotkin in their progressive implications, have by now become clearly established by a half century of painstaking historical research.
And, finally, the decentralizing trend of modern technics, greatly obscured until now by the counter-acting tendency toward economic concentration produced by the abnormal factors operating in the capitalist society, has been asserting itself with such force that even practical people as far removed from any theoretical influences as Ford is, have been forced to reckon with it in their larger plans. There is a great deal of creative stirring in the various projects for the integration of industry and agriculture launched by Ford; and that is, of course, irrespective of the absurd, socially illiterate, construction which Ford himself tries to place upon his own experiments. The latter show that the idea of an integrated and regionally decentralized economy forming one of the theoretical bases of the ideal of the Anarchist commune has by now advanced beyond the theoretical stage and is forcing itself to the fore of economic actualities. “What was a bold prophecy on the part of Kropotkin,” writes Lewis Mumford in his latest book The Culture of Cities “has become a definite movement, as the technical means of economic regionalism and the social impulses that gave it direction have converged.”
And, without detracting the least from the great originality of this book, one might say that the latter has shown the convergence of various streams of modem thought and truly valuable social experimentation upon the focal point of Anarchism-Communism: the ex-territorial commune as the basic cell of a federated society. Mumford uses the term “region” instead of ex-territorial commune, but the connotations of his term are the same. For to Mumford a region is not just a political or geographic unit, but “the basic configuration in human life,” and also “a permanent sphere of cultural influences and a center of economic activities.” It is “an area large enough to embrace a sufficient range of interests, and small enough to keep the interests in focus and to make them a subject of direct collective concern.”
A region thus conceived is something altogether different from the political and administrative divisions which disregard functional boundaries. These divisions are the work of the tyrannous political state whose emergence upon the stage of modern history is viewed by Mumford as a colossal tragedy resulting from the disintegration of the superior social and political pattern of the medieval city. Like Kropotkin, Mumford rejects the pseudo-scientific view of the Marxists which attributes to the State the category of a historic necessity brought about by the nascent forms of modern Capitalism.
To Mumford, the triumph of the tyrannous political State over the medieval commune was no more of a historic necessity than the victory of Fascism, whose role and dynamics, as it is clear to every student of Kropotkin, are similiar to the one manifested by the emerging absolutist State. It was the logical end-point of a process of enthropy—a “running down” of collective energy, which, unlike the reverse process of a creative upswing, is historically determined in its various phases.
Mumford dedicates a considerable portion of the book to the analysis of the general forms of the medieval commune, which to him, as to every libertarian thinker, represents the greatest approach to the natural function of a city as a specialized organ of social transmission. The breakdown of this normal pattern of communal life was the starting point of the process of social disruption, of crystallization of chaos now reaching its highest in the development of a functionally perverted city—the megalopolis—and the threatened collapse of civilization.
The development of Capitalism can be understood only in the light of this tragic heritage. The concomitant process of mechanical integration and social disruption, the triumph of untrammeled individualism in economic life, the laissez-faire system of economy—whose idealization, according to our author, is “the democratization of the baroque conception of the despotic Prince,”—all take their origin in the historic twist caused by the breakup of the pattern afforded by the medieval commune. In this sense the development of “Capitalism” was not inevitable. Mechanical progress could take place on the basis of an integrated and not a disrupted pattern of social life. Throughout the development of what is called capitalism, Mumford traces the emergence and development of “mutants”— anticipatory forms of the future social life, needing but the strong focusing of social intelligence to bring out their significance for the social order to come.
Mumford also upholds one of the favorite ideas of Kropotkin and Reclus in respect to the role of social intelligence in forestalling the threatened collapse of civilization and the shaping of new forms. Conscious orientation can forstall the tragic end of the downgrade cycle of civilization and turn it into the starting point of a new regeneration cycle. “The rational definition of the ideal framework,” writes Mumford, “does not alone effect the necessary transition; it is an important element in changing the direction of the blind process. The strongest social organization and social pressures, without such well-defined goals, dissipate their energies in uneasy random efforts occasioned by passing opportunities.”
This conscious orientation will be centered not only upon the very general aims of the socialist ideal, such as the collective ownership of land and the means of production, but upon the evolvement of an integrated form of social life based upon regional units. And contrary to the opinions of the State socialists, this orientation upon regionalism (the Bakuninites in the First International called it Communalism) is much more in consonance with the basic trends of modern technics then the centralized State economics of the Marxists. The ruralization of industry and industrialization of agriculture are assuming the nature of clearly manifested economic tendencies. Mumford quotes to this effect the opinion of the well known scientist, Prof. Russell Smith, who writes in his book North America, “It is possible that we are at the beginning of an era of partial distribution of manufacturing over the land where food production, climate and commercial access are good.”
Professor Smith’s prognostications, made more than a decade ago, were not meant for any other system but private capitalism, which places almost insuperable obstacles in the way of the assertion of those centralizing tendencies in virtue of the monopolistic concentration of wealth and the terrific pull exercised by the megalopolis upon national life. With the removal of the present system, economic life will shape itself in greater obedience to the demands of modem technics which point in the direction of regional decentralization and integration of economic activities on a local scale. Specialization of industry and gigantic units are a liability under conditions demanding flexibility and ease of adaptation. And they will become superfluous with the growing mobility of power, its wider distribution from central energy stations. Along with that go other factors favoring decentralization such as the greater application of systematic knowledge in the exploitation of resources and organization of work; the growing importance of biological and social sciences; soil regeneration, selective breeding, intensification of crop yields through cultivation of plants in specially prepared tanks, and in general, the raising of agriculture to the status of a scientific industry leading to the leveling of agricultural advantages and the fusion of city and rural areas. Those are technical factors operating at the present, but in sketching the outlines of the collective society of the near future one should also take into consideration the incidence of a technic which is just emerging from its experimental stage: the utilization of new sources of power such as solar energy; storage of electric energy; special energy crops grown under conditions laid down by scientific agronomy; the use of television and the fuller exploitation of the airplane. And it is clear that each of these factors will contribute to the acceleration of the same tendency toward decentralization and wide distribution of agricultural, industrial and cultural advantages now centered only in certain areas.
Mumford effectively disposes of the stock arguments advanced against the idea of regional decentralization which were held up against Kropotkin by the state socialists of a generation ago. Regionalism, he declares, is not synonymous with autarchy, economic and cultural isolation. Nor does it connote the return to the parochialism and political independence of the medieval cities with their mutual strifes. The region will be the integrated cell but not an independent political unit, a miniature state possessing the attributes of political sovereignity. Inter-regional controls will exist, and for the time being, those controls will be vested in the political state stripped of its power functions and transformed into a “service” state. This is quite in keeping with the realistic trends in libertarian thought which is coming to grapple with the problem of the transitional period in a sober fashion. For political sovereignity can be attenuated but cannot be conjured out of existence by a revolutionary fiat. This realistic approach to the problem of the devolution of political power or “the dying away of the state” is fully accepted by Mumford, whose seminal ideas on this matter posses a great wealth of valuable suggestions which will prove of immeasurably greater importance for the practical solution of the problem then all the talmudistic hair splitting of the Marxists over a few scanty passages devoted by their theoreticians to the same problem of the state in a transitional period.
Inter-regional control does not have to coincide with the boundaries of the national state. It will tend to be world wide, just as the foreign trade of the region based upon a special sort of currency directly attached to the commodities exchanged and valid only for this specific function. This, together with free migration, lack of definite boundaries between regions, the extra-territorial linkage effected by the associations within the region and tending to be world-wide with the vanishing of the national state,—all that will gradually create the new world culture, permeated with universal values and shot through with the infinite variety of local motifs and cultural idioms of the regions.
This is the ideal of the federalist, libertarian socialism as taught by Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin. And it is toward the reinterpretation of this ideal in the language of modem thought and realities that the latest book by Lewis Mumford— The Culture of Cities a book much too original to be forced into the mold of a single doctrine—makes such a powerful contribution.

From: Vanguard: A Libertarian Communist Journal. July, 1938. Vol. IV, №4. P. 8-10.

The 23rd General Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World took place on Sept. 12-17th. Space does not permit a lengthy discussion or report of the proceedings, which were marked by serious discussions on vital problems. The principal business of the convention revolved around the question of adjusting the policies of the organization to the changed conditions in the American Labor Movement in an effort to secure the gains which the organization had made during the past year in the field of metal and machinery, maritime and W.P.A.

Several resolutions call attention to the fact that while the I.W.W. has been successful in winning strikes, the organization has made no provisions for sustaining the union between strikes. The Lawrence and Mesaba Range strikes were won, but the gains were lost because the constitution of the I.W.W. did not permit time agreements. In the Colorado Coal Strike of 1927-8, which ended in victory for the I.W.W., the United Mind Workers of America reaped the fruits of this victory by meeting the demands of the membership for a time agreement. The refusal to sign time agreements has left the members at the mercy of the conservative and corrupt labor fakers.

The experience of the Cleveland Metal and Machinery Workers Industrial Union No. 440, further illustrates the necessity for a change in this policy. After organizing many shops in the face of the ruthless competition of the C.I.O. and A.F. of L., and establishing a permanent functioning organization, the very existence of the I.W.W. as a factor in the Labor Movement of the Middle West was threatened. The C.I.O. and A.F. of L offered time agreements. The members of the newly organized shops demanded time agreements and threatened to leave the I.W.W. if it persisted in refusing to sign them. Both the C.I.O. and the A.F. of L. are organizing the mass production industries. The field is no longer open. The I.W.W. must now struggle against the formidable competition offered by these organizations. In this struggle the I.W.W. mist meet the enemy on its own ground. If it is to become a factor in the labor movement it must, among other changes, accept the time agreement with the provision that such agreement will not in any way commit the organization to go on working while other shops in the same industry are on strike, or to handle “hot” strike goods. The above represents the gist of the discussions on this subject.

Most objections to the time agreements appear to have their root in the fear that the organization will become opportunistic; that it is a form of class-collaboration. Recent history does not bear out this contention. In the maritime industry, for example, the agreements signed between the shipowners and the maritime unions of the Pacific coast which ended the victorious epic-making general strikes of 1936-37, specifically prohibit and render impossible scabbing of one union against another. They commit the employers to recognize and abide by the demands which the union wrung from them by militant strike action. The militancy of the unions has in no way been impaired by the agreement. On the contrary, the unions have repeatedly shown that they can enforce the agreements by using their economic power. The agreement of the American Stove Company, an I.W.W. shop, contains provisions which adequately provide for the protection of the workers insofar as scabbing, and solidarity strikes are concerned.

The convention decided to hold a referendum on this question. We hope that the membership will see the need for this change, which will put the I.W.W. on the map in the vital mass-production field.

We are sorry to note that once again the I.W.W. has turned down affiliation with the I.W.M.A. This is most deplorable in view of the fact that the I.W.M.A. is the only international organization with ideas similar to those of the I.W.W. The affiliation to a body which counts the revolutionary C.N.T. among its members would increase and strengthen the bonds of solidarity and help immeasurably in the fight against fascism and build that great international unity of industrial unions which along can regenerate society.

The adverse decision is in some measure due to the fact that many libertarians have for years failed to give that cooperation and solidarity which the I.W.W. had a right to expect. They have failed to make any serious attempt to inform the membership about the history, principles and objectives of the Anarcho-Syndicalist movement. It is not yet too late to correct this mistake.

We take this opportunity to extend to the I.W.W. our revolutionary greetings and earnest wishes for success in organizing the workers of American in revolutionary industrial unions for the struggle against capitalism – S.W.

Transcribed by Juan Conatz