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Anarchism: From Theory to Practice

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If you had to get ONE book on anarchism, this is the one to get. No book covers more ground in fewer pages, and leaves the reader with a better understanding of the theory, history, and practice of anarchism.

Daniel Guerin walks the reader through it all, neatly dividing it into three parts: the origins of the ideas in part 1; the assorted approaches to the theory in part 2; and the revolutionary practice in part 3, going up to the late 1960s (the book came out in 1970).

The bibliography is also a valuable resource, as Guerin breaks it down topically, so readers can read more on their own.

This book puts the lie to anyone who equates anarchism with violence and turmoil, revealing it instead to be a sincere effort of working class people to build a better world.

I read this book in a day, and filled the margins with many, many notes, something I rarely do. Clearly, Gruien doesn't cover every aspect of Anarchism, but for a brief introduction to Proudhon, Bakhunin and Kropotkin, it is the best out there. And, our very own American Anarchist Noam Chomsky did the introduction, which is just as good as anything in the book (Hell, his intro is half the reason I bought the book). Plus, it is a very well bound book. The pages are sturdy, the print clear, and the size small yet durable, something you really don't find in many Political books... Very recommended.

Daniel Guerin's "Anarchism" is a wonderful collection of anarchist history, with a special bent on anarcho-syndicalism. The book itself is famous, but it is also well-known for its introduction by linguist and anarchist Noam Chomsky. "Anarchism" serves well as an introduction to anarchist thought, bringing the reader far beyond the typical misconceptions of anarchism that predominate the media.

Wonderful overview of the ideas and actions of anarchism. Includes commentary on the Russian Revolution, Spanish Revolution, the distinctions between libertarian and authoritarian socialism, and the words of such essential thinkers as Proudhon and Malatesta, to name only a few. Also includes a brief but enlightening introduction from Chomsky that serves to place anarchism and its historical development in a broader and historical context. All in all, a worthwhile and valuable contribution for those searching for information on this neglected (at least in the United States)component of political/philosophical discourse.

This book is absolutly the best book I have read on the subject of Anarchism. I wasn't able to put it down, ripping through it in two days, and reading through it again! Guerin does a fabulous job outlining the history of Anarchist thought and thinkers. I would also recommend his 'No Gods, No Masters', for a great collection of Anarchist writings.

This book is perfect for those already interessted in the movement, as well as people just looking to learn a bit about it. Also perfect for all those young "Anarchists" who think anarchy is about blowing $#!7 up (far to many of my friends fall into this, hopefully I can pull them out of it....).

Daniel Guerin was a French Marxist who became an anarchist in his latter life. He was also an activist, particularly around Gay rights and the Algerian War of Independence. As such he was almost perfectly qualified to write an introduction to anarchism from the point of view of a well read activist. Most other recent introductions to anarchism have been written by professional academics who thus missed the mass politics that lie at the base of anarchism and tend to give equal weight to insignificant individuals and mass movements.

The book starts with an introduction to anarchist theory, covering the major writers. It goes on to look at how these ideas were put into practise, in the construction of the early union movement, in the Russian Revolution and Italian factory councils and finally during the Spanish revolution of 1936. These were times when anarchists numbered in the tens or hundred of thousands. In Spain up to two million members of the anarchist CNT c! ! arried out the most large scale voluntary collectivisation of industry and land that history has seen to date.

In particular when talking about the failings of the Russian revolution Guerin's Marxist background comes through to great advantage. The Russian Revolution was the failure of Marxism, in particular its failure to realise how easily state power could corrupt a revolutionary party and transform it into a new ruling class. But Guerin never abandoned Marxism completely, he recognised it as a useful economic and analytical tool. His strength was in not only realising the criticisms of the anarchists about the Marxist view of the state were correct but having the integrity to then become and start to promote anarchism himself.

The book ends at a key moment in history for Anarchism, it was written shortly after 1968 when a new layer of youth rebelled and many turned to anarchist ideas as an alternative to the state capitalism of Marxism. Although old at this stage G! ! uerin's conclusions show he is obviously inspired by the ho! pe this movement gives for human liberation. If anything he is somewhat over enthusiastic, being too hopeful about the Algerian and Yugoslavian experiments with local workers management. But this one weakness can be forgiven in a book that every left and social activist should read.

A basic tenant of Libertarian socialism is that workers should directly control and design what their political representatives' implement and should directly control their workplaces, so as to maximize their own freedom. As Marx stressed in his early writings the will to work, to create, to mold nature to our intellects and creative powers, is part of human nature, our "species-being." When prevented from developing their "species-being" by having to sell themselves to wage slavery, struggling to feed themselves and being fettered by other drudgeries, human beings are degraded. They become dysfunctional and their powers of intellect and creativity are assaulted. They become dysfunctional, anti-social. This would become very rare in a libertarian socialist with maximum personal freedom. A community could lock away any person committing criminal acts in order that his constructive "species-being "could be recuperated. Or if the criminal didn't want to do that, a community could expel the criminal from their midst. People should have a choice, said Bakunin of choosing to live in any community they wanted. If any community in a libertarian socialist society dosen't appeal to them, they can go live in the mountains and forests with the beasts as Bakunin put it. People with alternative lifestyles like nudists could set up their own community and link themselves to regular communities as called for in a program of Spanish anarchists in 1936.

Anarchists in the 19th century, Guerin shows, were particularly cognizant of the dangers of authoritarian state socialism. Bakunin gave a particularly prescient prediction about it, though he unfairly described his rival Marx as an adherent of it. Authoritarian socialists like Lenin advocated a one party autocracy that would direct society until that autocracy determined that a society was fit for full libertarian socialism. Libertarian socialists have always recognized the possibility that capitalist institutions may need to be maintained, as society slowly transitions out of capitalist practices. But anarchists believe that direct political democracy should always exist during such periods even if capitalist practices still remain. During the two revolutions in Russia in 1917, the urban proletariat seized control of their workplaces as they had done back in 1905. In many instances workers had seized control of their workplaces after factory owners had fled or refused to comply with early Bolshevik decrees that factory managers share management with workers. Lenin was very uneasy about it but went along with it at first because of its popular support. Long before he achieved political power, Lenin had always written, even in his most libertarian work "State and Revolution" of the need for workers and peasants to be subordinated to an autocracy of "democratic centralism" By mid 1918, using the excuse of the civil war with the White armies and the invasions by the imperialist powers, the freedom of the Soviets were eliminated and they were forced to become docile instruments of Bolshevik policy. Anarchists who non-violently objected to the new policies were subject to savage repression. Because the Bolshevik leaders now delegated themselves all decision making power throughout their vast country, things got screwed up. The workers had to wait a very long time for approval so things didn't get done. The communication and transportation facilities that did exist in Russia at the time were in ruins. The workers were all quite willing to fight for the Bolsheviks in order to defend their self-management institutions. However, when the workers tried to run their factories on their own and coordinate with workers councils in other industries, the Bolsheviks forced them to stop. Guerin quotes Voline an example of this, workers at a St. Petersburg oil refinery who organized themselves to get their factory moving again but were stopped by the authorities. In early 1921, Alexandra Kollantay, urged the Bolshevik party to loosen restrictions on the freedom of workers noting the rising worker discontent, the cause of which was the stifling of that freedom. This contributed to Lenin's decision to officially ban all dissent in the Bolshevik party, which Trotsky later admitted set the party on a firm course towards totalitarianism. There were massive strikes in Petrograd and Moscow and workers and sailors in Kronstadt began to organize in solidarity. The Kronstadt activists demanded the restoration of the freedom of the Soviets and freedom of speech for anarchists and left socialists along with the Bolsheviks. They were against freedom of speech for more conservative socialists. They did not demand the removal of the Bolshevik party. War Commissar Trotsky sent a force that crushed the rebellion in barbaric fashion. Meanwhile in the Ukraine, workers and peasant soviets had been set up successfully under the leadership of an anarchist army led by Nestor Makhno. They drove out the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary, then were much more successful against the White Armies than the Red Army. They were an intolerable threat to Bolshevik power so they were crushed. For instance in November 1920, negotiators from Makhno's army were sent to talk with the Bolsheviks but were arrested and shot by the CHEKA and the Makhnovist army units that had accompanied them were caught in a trap and disarmed.

Anarchism had a firm foothold in Spain, Guerin points out.. So when a left wing government was elected in Spain in February 1936 and Francisco Franco launched his first counterrevolutionary revolt, the workers and peasants stopped it by seizing control of their factories and their land and set up worker's and peasant's councils. The left wing government included some anarchists but was dominated by non-anarchist socialists. This Spanish government was forced by the hostile "neutrality" of the Western powers and the aid given to Franco's forces after his successful rebellion of July 1936 by the Fascist powers to turn to Soviet Russia for support. The power of Stalinists in the government grew and they used it to destroy worker self-management institutions, which were fairly successful for a period according to Guerin.

The last part of the book includes ssome interesting and even prophetic observations about the USSR in the mid-60's and reports on worker self-management within totalitarian political frameworks as in Tito's Yugoslavia. The last chapter, a postscript to the 1970 edition, has Guerin indulging in some very overly hopeful exhortations on the possibilities of the insurrections of 1968 in his country, France.

At least in Sweden, Daniel Guérin's book "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice" is *the* book everyone interested in anarchism reads. I know from personal experience than all teenagers who consider themselves anarchists read it, or at least used to read it when I was in high school. I also read it and found it interesting and well-written. I think it was the first political book I ever read!

Guérin was a French left-wing intellectual, and wrote several books that are relatively well-known in leftist circles, including "Fascism and Big Business" and "Negroes on the march". He belonged to the PSOP, a rather small socialist party in France, roughly similar to the Spanish POUM and the British ILP. Later, he became an anarchist of the "platformist" current, which emphasizes class struggle rather than alternative lifestyles, and calls for a centralized revolutionary organization, something many other anarchists consider anathema. (The founders of platformism were Peter Arshinov, Nestor Makhno and Ida Mett. See my review of Arshinov's book on the Makhnovists for a background.)

"Anarchism: From Theory to Practice" was first published in 1965. However, the anarchist political myths are still the same, and the book can therefore still be read by students of intellectual history (or budding anarchists, perhaps). Guérin describes the main anarchist thinkers of the 19th century: Proudhon, Bakunin, Stirner and Krapotkin. He attempts a kind of synthesis of their rather disparate ideas. Other anarchists mentioned include Malatesta and the perhaps lesser known Diego Abad de Santillan. The section on the history of anarchism concentrates on those anarchists that were active in the labour movement and called for class struggle, rather than on hippies, religious communes or terrorists. All the usual anarchist stories are included: the French CGT, the Spanish CNT and the Spanish revolution, Makhno, Kronstadt... There is also a chapter criticizing "workers self-management" in Algeria and Yugoslavia. Today, this part of the book looks curious, but back in 1965, many left-wingers probably saw these nations as some kind of libertarian alternatives to Soviet Communism. In Sweden, the more moderate wing of anarcho-syndicalism was certainly positive towards Tito's Yugoslavia.

While Guérin isn't entirely uncritical of the anarchist tradition, "Anarchism" is nevertheless a work of propaganda, and should be read with that in mind. I find it interesting for the reason I mentioned earlier: many people got their first positive exposure to anarchism from this book.

PS. Perhaps I must point out, that I'm not an anarchist...

This book is highly recommended for those who are already convinced of the value of anarchism and want to expand their understanding of anarchist history and theory.

Guerin packs a lot of learning into this slim (160 page) volume. His portrayals of the intellectual fathers of the movement-- Proudhon, Bakunin, Malatesta, et. al., are nuanced and eye-opening. He pulls choice quotes froma broad range of sources and make clear the theoretical principles of social anarchism as they developed out of the 1st International all the way up through the 1960s.

His brief descriptions of the high water marks of anarchist struggle in Spain and Russia are concise, lucid, and affirming.

For all the book's strengths, though, it is not the most exciting reading. Guerin packs a lot of crucial information in, but somehow the spirit of revolt and solidarity, the real poetry of anarchism, doesn't shine through the presentation. In short, this is not the best book to use to turn newbies on to anarchism. For young people new to anarchism, I would recommend Crimethinc's "Days of War, Nights of Love" and "Recipes for Disaster". For the more mature, pragmatically minded initiates, Colin Ward's "Anarchy in Action" is a good place to start. For the questioning Marxist, Bookchin's "Post-Scarcity Anarchism" is essential reading.

that Anarchism was a form of socialism. I thought of it as a right-wing form of extreme libertarian thought. To find out that it is a form of non-state socialism, libertarian-socialism, helps me understand so many things. Like the problems between the anarchists and the communists during the Spanish Civil War. Now I understand WHY they were on the same side to start with.
The book is a nice little book, a one day book, that can be finished quickly and allow you to take your first step into the wonderful world of no-state or non-state socialism. Self-management, hostility to government control, and liberal democracy are all factors that define it and really helped me pin it down.
Get this book.