GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY DEPARTMENT.

IES FRAY PEDRO DE URBINA

Marxism and Anarchism

Let's analyze the two political concepts that appeared in the labor movement, what they were and their similarities and differences. a) Marxism: Marxism is the set of political and philosophical doctrines derived from the work of Karl Marx, philosopher, economist, journalist and revolutionary of the nineteenth century. Marxist thought analyzes the present, past and future. Present: It sees that present bourgeois society is unjust, exploitative and is based on private property and the surplus or added value. The new industrial system turns the worker into a machine so that it becomes alienated. Background: The history of mankind has always been a class struggle. Marx thought that all along the history they had happened different models of production: -"Slavery: Owners and slaves in Classical times (Antiquity). It was succeeded by feudalism. - Feudal: Where there was a dominant group (lords and clergy) and the subjugated (peasants). - The latter mode of production is capitalism, which Marx also thinks will disappear. Future: A new mode of production would replace the capitalist, the communist. And it will not disappear because there will be no social classes. But Marx believed that the proletariat is not prepared to go to the communist society and the state would own the means of production on a transitional basis until the final abolition of the property with the arrival of communist society. In the following text you can see what has been said above, how to use his political force to take the power from the bourgeoisie, and to eliminate private property. At points of this text it is also considered what Marxism largely seeks to achieve. This text is part of the Communist Manifesto written by Marx in 1848: The first stage of the revolution is the formation of the proletariat as the ruling class, the conquest of democracy. The proletariat would use its political supremacy to get away little by little all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production owned by the state, i.e. (id est = esto es) the proletariat organized as the ruling class ... This of course can not be met at first, but by a despotic violation of property rights and bourgeois relations of production. These measures ... will be very different in different countries. However, for the most advanced countries the following measures could be implemented: 1. Expropriation of landed property 2. Strongly progressive tax 3. Abolition of inheritance 5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State through a National Bank 6. Centralization in the hands of the State of all means of transport 10. Free public education for all children, abolition of child labor in factories as practiced today. Marx, Communist Manifesto, 1848.

b) Anarchism is a doctrine and radical movement that promotes the autonomy of each individual. It is against the government and promotes self-government associations. Bakunin was considered one of 'the fathers of anarchism', he was pursued by all countries. Anarchism hasnt got a coherence and unity, it criticizes capitalism and private property and defends the communal one. The idea of anarchism is to live in communes controlled by their own people and each community would deal with other districts establishing a federal structure. Anarchism rejects the state and political participation, as they say the state means violence, hierarchy, power ... and all that went against the freedom of man, so it will be eliminated. Its choice is permanent revolution, some of them were advocates of "direct action" by the bombs or violence to cope with the violence of the employers. In conclusion, anarchism advocates individualism, personal freedom and that man is good by nature and therefore liable to govern himself. In the following text it appears the right to govern themselves and the pursuit of equality. This text is an excerpt of the future revolutionary international society 'The Brotherhood', written by Bakunin in 1865: Freedom is the absolute right of every man and woman, of age, to their conscience and reason are solely responsible for their actions, to provide them voluntarily and not to be responsible, therefore, rather than against themselves and society of which they form part, but only if they have freely consented to be part of it. [...] I am truly free only when all human beings around me, men and women are equally free ... so, therefore, that the more they are free men around me and the deeper and wider their freedom, the more extensive, deep and wide it will be mine Slavery of only a person in the land is an offense against the principle of humanity, it is a denial of the freedom of all. Bakunin, an extract of the future revolutionary international society "The Brotherhood", 1865. The following texts show that, although both would like to eliminate capitalism and establish a more egalitarian society, even though they would unite into the workers' International, the differences were obvious. The biggest difference was that Bakunin neither agreed with the state at all, nor with the control of production by the state. In the following texts it can be appreciated.

The Communists believe a duty to organize labor forces to seize the political power of states. The revolutionary socialists, however, rely solely on freedom. They think that humanity has been ordered too long and that the source of its unhappiness isnt any form of government but the very fact of government, whatever it may be. That is the point that divides mainly revolutionary socialist or collectivist from authoritarian communists, supporters of the total initiative of the State. ... They claim that only the dictatorship (theirs, of course) can create the will of the people. We answer: Any dictatorship can have other aim than to perpetuate itself, any dictatorship could breed and develop inside the people that support it nothing but slavery. Freedom can only be created by freedom. Bakunin, The Paris Commune and the Nation of the State, 1871. Marx is an authoritarian and centralizing communist. He wants what we want: the triumph of economic and social equality, but in the state and by the strength of the state; by the dictatorship of a provisional government, powerful and, so to speak, despotic, that is, the denial of freedom. His economic ideal is the state become into the sole owner of the land and all capital, tilling the first through agricultural partnerships, well paid and directed by its civil engineers. We want the same triumph of economic and social equality by abolishing the state and all that is called legal right but, in our opinion, it is the permanent denial of human rights. We want to rebuild the society and the establishment of human unity, not up and down the route of any authority, but from the bottom up, through the free federation of workers' associations of all kinds, emancipated from the yoke of the state. Bakunin's letter to his friend Rubicone Nabruzzi, 23-VII-1872.