The road(s) to a full libertarian economy

I was re-reading "Anarchism & Anarcho-Syndicalism" by Rocker and came across this statement
(the surprising part is highlighted and italizied):

Common to all Anarchists is the desire to free society of all political and social coercive institutions which stand in the way of development of a free humanity. In this sense Mutualism, Collectivism and Communism are not to be regarded as closed systems permitting no further development, but merely as economic assumptions as to the means of safeguarding a free community. There will even probably be in society of the future different forms of economic co-operation operating side by side, since any social progress must be associated with that free experiment and practical testing out for which in a society of free communities there will be afforded every opportunity.
http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/rocker/sp001495/rocker_as1.html

Granted this was written more than 70 years ago, during the Spanish Revolution, and I am wondering if some of his opinion is based on the mixed charater of the Spanish revolutionary
economy. Or if Rocker left the door open for another aspect to building a libertarian economy on the road to libertarian communism (if you would, a transitional period).

Speaking of "transitional periods", both Tthe Organizational Platform" and a critique of the platform ("Constuctive Anarchism" by G.P. Maximoff) discuss this. I raise this because I gather some comrades have been discussing forms of libertarian communism and the roads to get there. For example, "communalization" as being the "transitional period" to "collectivization" (libertaian communism). So, it's interesting to see how others habe discussed what we normally think of as a Trotskyist concept (the transitional period).

"The Platform" states that the transitional period would look something like this:

VII. The transition period
Socialist political parties use the term "transition period" to refer to a specific phase in the life of a people, the essential features of which are a break with the old order and the introduction of a new economic and political system, which does not yet imply, however, the full emancipation of all workers.

In this respect, all the minimum programmes of the socialist political parties, for instance the democratic programme of the opportunistic socialists, or the communist programme of the "dictatorship of the proletariat", are programmes for the transition period.

The essential feature of these minimum programmes is that they regard the complete realization of the workers’ ideals - their independence, freedom and equality - as unrealisable in the short term, and as a result they retain a whole series of the capitalist system's institutions: the principle of State coercion, private ownership of the means and instruments of production, wage-slavery and much else, according to the goals of each political party’s programme.

Anarchists have always been principled opponents of such programmes, taking the view that the construction of transitional systems retaining the principles of exploitation and coercion of the masses unavoidably leads back to slavery.

Instead of political minimum programmes, anarchists have only ever championed social revolution that would strip the capitalist class of political and economic privileges and place the means and instruments of production, and all other functions of social and economic life, in the hands of the workers.

And that is a position that anarchists have stood firm on to this very day.

The idea of the transition period, according to which the social revolution should culminate not in an anarchist society, but in some other form of system retaining elements and relics of the old capitalist system, is anti-anarchist in its essence. It contains in itself the threat of bolstering and developing these elements to their former proportions, thus sending events into reverse.

One clear example of this is the "dictatorship of the proletariat" regime established by the Bolsheviks in Russia, which according to them was to be only a transitional stage in the march to complete communism, but which in point of fact resulted in the restoration of class society, at the bottom of which, just like before, we find the industrial workers and poorest peasants.

The main focus in the construction of the anarchist society does not consist of guaranteeing every individual, right from day one of the revolution, boundless freedom to seek satisfaction of their needs, but in the conquest of the social basis for that society and in establishing the principles of relations between people. The question of the greater or lesser abundance of resources is not a matter of principle but a technical issue.

The underlying principle upon which the new society will be built, the precept upon which it will rest, so to speak, and which must not be restricted even to the slightest degree is the equality of relations, the freedom and the independence of the workers. This principle encapsulates the prime basic requirement of the masses, in the name of which alone they will rise up in social revolution.

Either the social revolution will end in the defeat of the workers, in which case we have to start all over again to prepare for another struggle, a fresh offensive against the capitalist system; or it will lead to the victory of the workers, in which case, having seized the wherewithal to fend for themselves - the land, production and social functions - they will set about building a free society.

That moment will be the beginning of the construction of an anarchist society which, once started, will then develop continuously, gathering strength and constantly being improved upon.

Therefore, the takeover of production and social functions will be the watershed between the statist and the non-statist eras.

In order to become the rallying point of the struggling masses and the social revolutionary epoch, anarchism must not hide its basic principles nor accommodate its programme to assimilate vestiges of the old order, opportunistic tendencies of transitional systems and periods; instead, it must develop its principles and refine them as far as possible.

http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/general.htm

In turn, Maximoff posited the following criticisms:

10. The Transition Period

One of the painful questions among Anarchists is that of the "Transition Period". The authors of the "Platform" also considered it and declared that it is a "definite phase in the life of a people characterized by the breakup of the old structure and the establishment of a new economic and political system which, however, does not yet involve the full liberation of the working people" (p. 17). In view of this attitude, the "Platform" passes over this Transition Period as a non-Anarchist phenomenon. It is non-Anarchist because it is "not the Anarchist society which will emerge as a result of the social Revolution, but some 'X', still containing elements and remnants of the old Capitalist system". (page 17). What elements are these? ''The principle of State enforcement; private property in tools and means of production, the hiring of labour, etc." Instead of all these evils, the "Platform" insists on a perfect social Revolution which would establish with one blow a social order containing no sign of the survival of elements from the old society.

Are there actually people in our ranks who regard such a vision as practical? We, for one, consider it entirely impossible.
The authors of the "Platform" themselves continue, with their habit of saying one thing and meaning another, that "the Anarcho-communist society in its final stage will not be established by the force of a social upheaval alone" (page 21). The logical assumption from this statement would be that, for the final formation of the Anarcho-communist society, a certain period of time is needed, i.e. a Transition Period. And the "Platform" declares this directly: "Its realisation (society's) will present a more or less lengthy social-revolutionary process, directed by the organised forces of victorious labour along definite lines." (page 21).

A process is a function of time, and the time during which this process continues "is a transitional time", characterized by a series of concrete tasks designed to help the new society approach its ideal architectural perfection, and to imbue it with Anarchist life. These concrete tasks - even those proposed by the "Platform" - again assert the inevitability of a transitional period, which was proposed by the Russian Anarcho-syndicalists as far back as 1918.

"Only the workshop of producers," the "Platform" says, "belonging in its entirety to all working people and to none individually ... The products form a common food fund for the workers, from which each participant in the new industry will receive all his necessities on the basis of full equality. The new system of production will destroy completely the concepts of hiring and exploitation ... There will be no bosses ... This is the first practical step towards the realisation of Anarchist Communism" (pages 22-23). And they call that the "first step"! The authors of the "Platform" evidently confuse the ninth month of pregnancy with the first. They themselves had already stated that the principle "to each according to his needs" would be preceded by a concept of expediency - once again a transitional measure.
The "Platform" failed completely in the question of solving the agrarian problem. In industry it proposed Communism, and in agriculture an individual economy with rights of ownership to the products of the economy; in other words, the need for an exchange of goods with the city would continue until the great masses of the peasantry embraced Communism in production and distribution.

Again, this process is perforce lengthy; a number of measures will have to be taken to speed the process. The objections of the "Platform" and other Anarchists to the Transitional period are a tribute which our comrades pay to the relics of those days when Anarchists thought little, if at all, about the nature, meaning and process of social upheavals. But as soon as Anarchists descended from the cloudy heights to the sinful, practical, materialistic earth, they had, willy nilly, to be in favour of the Transitional period. And those who continue to speak and write against it do this only to clear their hardened consciences.

http://libcom.org/library/constructive-anarchism-debate-platform-g-p-maksimov#a10