Sunday, February 20, 2011

कैफ़ी आज़मी - औरत


उठ मेरी जान! मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

कल्ब-ए-माहौल में लरज़ाँ शरर-ए-ज़ंग हैं आज
हौसले वक़्त के और ज़ीस्त के यक रंग हैं आज
आबगीनों में तपां वलवला-ए-संग हैं आज
हुस्न और इश्क हम आवाज़ व हमआहंग हैं आज
जिसमें जलता हूँ उसी आग में जलना है तुझे
उठ मेरी जान! मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

ज़िन्दगी जहद में है सब्र के काबू में नहीं
नब्ज़-ए-हस्ती का लहू कांपते आँसू में नहीं
उड़ने खुलने में है नक़्हत ख़म-ए-गेसू में नहीं
ज़न्नत इक और है जो मर्द के पहलू में नहीं
उसकी आज़ाद रविश पर भी मचलना है तुझे
उठ मेरी जान! मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

गोशे-गोशे में सुलगती है चिता तेरे लिये
फ़र्ज़ का भेस बदलती है क़ज़ा तेरे लिये
क़हर है तेरी हर इक नर्म अदा तेरे लिये
ज़हर ही ज़हर है दुनिया की हवा तेरे लिये
रुत बदल डाल अगर फूलना फलना है तुझे
उठ मेरी जान! मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

क़द्र अब तक तिरी तारीख़ ने जानी ही नहीं
तुझ में शोले भी हैं बस अश्कफ़िशानी ही नहीं
तू हक़ीक़त भी है दिलचस्प कहानी ही नहीं
तेरी हस्ती भी है इक चीज़ जवानी ही नहीं
अपनी तारीख़ का उनवान बदलना है तुझे
उठ मेरी जान! मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

तोड़ कर रस्म के बुत बन्द-ए-क़दामत से निकल
ज़ोफ़-ए-इशरत से निकल वहम-ए-नज़ाकत से निकल
नफ़स के खींचे हुये हल्क़ा-ए-अज़मत से निकल
क़ैद बन जाये मुहब्बत तो मुहब्बत से निकल
राह का ख़ार ही क्या गुल भी कुचलना है तुझे
उठ मेरी जान! मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

तोड़ ये अज़्म शिकन दग़दग़ा-ए-पन्द भी तोड़
तेरी ख़ातिर है जो ज़ंजीर वह सौगंध भी तोड़
तौक़ यह भी है ज़मर्रूद का गुल बन्द भी तोड़
तोड़ पैमाना-ए-मरदान-ए-ख़िरदमन्द भी तोड़
बन के तूफ़ान छलकना है उबलना है तुझे
उठ मेरी जान! मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

तू फ़लातून व अरस्तू है तू ज़ोहरा परवीन
तेरे क़ब्ज़े में ग़रदूँ तेरी ठोकर में ज़मीं
हाँ उठा जल्द उठा पा-ए-मुक़द्दर से ज़बीं
मैं भी रुकने का नहीं वक़्त भी रुकने का नहीं
लड़खड़ाएगी कहाँ तक कि संभलना है तुझे
उठ मेरी जान! मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

कैफ़ी आज़मी -इब्ने-मरियम


इब्ने-मरियम[1]
तुम ख़ुदा हो
ख़ुदा के बेटे हो
या फ़क़त[2] अम्न[3] के पयंबर[4] हो
या किसी का हसीं तख़य्युल[5] हो
जो भी हो मुझ को अच्छे लगते हो
जो भी हो मुझ को सच्चे लगते हो
इस सितारे में जिस में सदियों से
झूठ और किज़्ब[6] का अंधेरा है
इस सितारे में जिस को हर रुख़[7] से
रंगती सरहदों ने घेरा है
इस सितारे में, न जिस की आबादी
अम्न बोती है जंग काटती है
रात पीती है नूर मुखड़ों का
सुबह सीनों का ख़ून चाटती है
तुम न होते तो जाने क्या होता
तुम न होते तो इस सितारे में
देवता राक्षस ग़ुलाम इमाम
पारसा[8] रिंद[9] रहबर[10] रहज़न[11]
बिरहमन शैख़ पादरी भिक्षु
सभी होते मगर हमारे लिये
कौन चढता ख़ुशी से सूली पर
झोंपडों में घिरा ये वीराना
मछलियाँ दिन में सूख़ती हैं जहाँ
बिल्लियाँ दूर बैठी रहती हैं
और ख़ारिशज़दा से कुछ कुत्ते
लेटे रहते हैं बे-नियाज़ाना[12]
दम मरोड़े के कोई सर कुचले
काटना क्या ये भोँकते भी नहीं
और जब वो दहकता अंगारा
छन से सागर में डूब जाता है
तीरगी ओढ लेती है दुनिया
कश्तियाँ कुछ किनारे आती हैं
भांग गांजा चरस शराब अफ़ीम
जो भी लायें जहाँ से भी लायें
दौड़ते हैं इधर से कुछ साये
और सब कुछ उतार लाते हैं
गाड़ी जाती है अदल[13] की मीज़ान>
जिस का हिस्सा उसी को मिलता है
तुम यहाँ क्यों खड़े हो मुद्दत से
ये तुम्हारी थकी-थकी भेड़ें
रात जिन को ज़मीं के सीने पर
सुबह होते उँडेल देती है
मंडियों दफ़्तरों मिलों की तरफ़
हाँक देती ढकेल देती है
रास्ते में ये रुक नहीं सकतीं
तोड़ के घुटने झुक नहीं सकतीं
इन से तुम क्या तवक़्क़ो रखते हो
भेड़िया इन के साथ चलता है
तकते रहते हो उस सड़क की तरफ़
दफ़्न जिस में कई कहानियाँ हैं
दफ़्न जिस में कई जवानियाँ हैं
जिस पे इक साथ भागी फिरती हैं
ख़ाली जेबें भी और तिजोरियाँ भी
जाने किस का है इंतज़ार तुम्हें
मुझ को देख़ो के मैं वही तो हूँ
जिस को कोड़ों की छाँव में दुनिया
बेचती भी ख़रीदती भी थी
मुझ को देख़ो के मैं वही तो हूँ
जिस को खेतों में ऐसे बाँधा था
जैसे मैं उन का एक हिस्सा था
खेत बिकते तो मैं भी बिकता था
मुझ को देख़ो के मैं वही तो हूँ
कुछ मशीनें बनाई जब मैंने
उन मशीनों के मालिकों ने मुझे
बे-झिझक उनमें ऐसे झौंक दिया
जैसे मैं कुछ नहीं हूँ ईंधन हूँ
मुझ को देखो के मैं थका हारा
फिर रहा हूँ युगों से आवारा
तुम यहाँ से हटो तो आज की रात
सो रहूँ मैं इसी चबूतरे पर
तुम यहाँ से हटो ख़ुदा के लिये
जाओ वो विएतनाम के जंगल
उस के मस्लूब[14] शहर ज़ख़्मी गाँव
जिन को इंजील[15] पढ़ने वालों ने
रौंद डाला है फूँक डाला है
जाने कब से पुकारते हैं तुम्हें
जाओ इक बार फिर हमारे लिये
तुम को चढ़ना पड़ेगा सूली पर

शब्दार्थ:
  1.  मरियम का बेटा अर्थात ईसा मसीह
  2.  केवल
  3.  शांति
  4.  अवतार
  5.  सुन्दर कल्पना
  6.  झूठ
  7.  तरफ़
  8.  पवित्र
  9.  शराबी
  10.  मार्गदर्शक
  11.  लुटेरा
  12.  निश्चिंत
  13.  न्याय
  14.  सूली पर चढ़ाए गए
  15.  बाइबल

गोरख पाण्डेय -रुमाल

नीले पीले सफेद चितकबरे लाल
रखते हैं राम लाल जी कई रुमाल
वे नहीं जानते किसने इन्हें बुना
जा कर कई दुकानों से ख़ुद इन्हें चुना
तह-पर -तह करते ख़ूब सम्हाल-सम्हाल
ऑफ़िस जाते जेबों में भर दो-चार
हैं नाक रगड़ते इनसे बारम्बार
जब बॉस डाँटता लेते एक निकाल
सब्ज़ी को लेकर बीवी पर बिगड़ें
या मुन्ने की माँगों पर बरस पड़ें
पलकों पर इन्हें फेरते हैं तत्काल
वे राजनीति से करते हैं परहेज़
भावुक हैं, पारटियों को गाली तेज़
दे देते हैं कोनों से पोंछ मलाल
गड़बड़ियों से आजिज़ भरते जब आह
रंगीन तहों से कोई तानाशाह
रच कर सुधार देते हैं हाल.

: गोरख पाण्डेय- उनका डर


वे डरते हैं
किस चीज़ से डरते हैं वे
तमाम धन-दौलत
गोला-बारूद पुलिस-फ़ौज के बावजूद ?
वे डरते हैं
कि एक दिन
निहत्थे और ग़रीब लोग
उनसे डरना
बंद कर देंगे ।

नागार्जुन -भोजपुर


1
यहीं धुआँ मैं ढूँढ़ रहा था
यही आग मैं खोज रहा था
यही गंध थी मुझे चाहिए
बारूदी छर्रें की खुशबू!
ठहरो–ठहरो इन नथनों में इसको भर लूँ...
बारूदी छर्रें की खुशबू!
भोजपुरी माटी सोंधी हैं,
इसका यह अद्भुत सोंधापन!
लहरा उठ्ठी
कदम–कदम पर, इस माटी पर
महामुक्ति की अग्नि–गंध
ठहरो–ठहरो इन नथनों में इसको भर लूँ
अपना जनम सकारथ कर लूँ!

2
मुन्ना, मुझको
पटना–दिल्ली मत जाने दो
भूमिपुत्र के संग्रामी तेवर लिखने दो
पुलिस दमन का स्वाद मुझे भी तो चखने दो
मुन्ना, मुझे पास आने दो
पटना–दिल्ली मत जाने दो

3

यहाँ अहिंसा की समाधि है
यहाँ कब्र है पार्लमेंट की
भगतसिंह ने नया–नया अवतार लिया है
अरे यहीं पर
अरे यहीं पर
जन्म ले रहे
आजाद चन्द्रशेखर भैया भी
यहीं कहीं वैकुंठ शुक्ल हैं
यहीं कहीं बाधा जतीन हैं
यहां अहिंसा की समाधि है...

4

एक–एक सिर सूँघ चुका हूँ
एक–एक दिल छूकर देखा
इन सबमें तो वही आग है, ऊर्जा वो ही...
चमत्कार है इस माटी में
इस माटी का तिलक लगाओ
बुद्धू इसकी करो वंदना
यही अमृत है¸ यही चंदना
बुद्धू इसकी करो वंदना

यही तुम्हारी वाणी का कल्याण करेगी
यही मृत्तिका जन–कवि में अब प्राण भरेगी
चमत्कार है इस माटी में...
आओ, आओ, आओ, आओ!
तुम भी आओ, तुम भी आओ
देखो, जनकवि, भाग न जाओ
तुम्हें कसम है इस माटी की
इस माटी की/ इस माटी की/ इस माटी की

नागार्जुन: खिचड़ी विप्लव देखा हमने- सत्य


सत्य को लकवा मार गया है
वह लंबे काठ की तरह
पड़ा रहता है सारा दिन, सारी रात
वह फटी–फटी आँखों से
टुकुर–टुकुर ताकता रहता है सारा दिन, सारी रात
कोई भी सामने से आए–जाए
सत्य की सूनी निगाहों में जरा भी फर्क नहीं पड़ता
पथराई नज़रों से वह यों ही देखता रहेगा
सारा–सारा दिन, सारी–सारी रात

सत्य को लकवा मार गया है
गले से ऊपरवाली मशीनरी पूरी तरह बेकार हो गई है
सोचना बंद
समझना बंद
याद करना बंद
याद रखना बंद
दिमाग की रगों में ज़रा भी हरकत नहीं होती
सत्य को लकवा मार गया है
कौर अंदर डालकर जबड़ों को झटका देना पड़ता है
तब जाकर खाना गले के अंदर उतरता है
ऊपरवाली मशीनरी पूरी तरह बेकार हो गई है
सत्य को लकवा मार गया है

वह लंबे काठ की तरह पड़ा रहता है
सारा–सारा दिन, सारी–सारी रात
वह आपका हाथ थामे रहेगा देर तक
वह आपकी ओर देखता रहेगा देर तक
वह आपकी बातें सुनता रहेगा देर तक

लेकिन लगेगा नहीं कि उसने आपको पहचान लिया है

जी नहीं, सत्य आपको बिल्कुल नहीं पहचानेगा
पहचान की उसकी क्षमता हमेशा के लिए लुप्त हो चुकी है
जी हाँ, सत्य को लकवा मार गया है
उसे इमर्जेंसी का शाक लगा है
लगता है, अब वह किसी काम का न रहा
जी हाँ, सत्य अब पड़ा रहेगा
लोथ की तरह, स्पंदनशून्य मांसल देह की तरह!

नागार्जुन -तीनों बन्दर बापू के


बापू के भी ताऊ निकले तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
सरल सूत्र उलझाऊ निकले तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
सचमुच जीवनदानी निकले तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
ग्यानी निकले, ध्यानी निकले तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
जल-थल-गगन-बिहारी निकले तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
लीला के गिरधारी निकले तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
सर्वोदय के नटवरलाल
फैला दुनिया भर में जाल
अभी जियेंगे ये सौ साल
ढाई घर घोडे की चाल
मत पूछो तुम इनका हाल
सर्वोदय के नटवरलाल

लम्बी उमर मिली है, ख़ुश हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
दिल की कली खिली है, ख़ुश हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
बूढ़े हैं फिर भी जवान हैं ख़ुश हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
परम चतुर हैं, अति सुजान हैं ख़ुश हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
सौवीं बरसी मना रहे हैं ख़ुश हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
बापू को हीबना रहे हैं ख़ुश हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
बच्चे होंगे मालामाल
ख़ूब गलेगी उनकी दाल
औरों की टपकेगी राल
इनकी मगर तनेगी पाल
मत पूछो तुम इनका हाल
सर्वोदय के नटवरलाल

सेठों का हित साध रहे हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
युग पर प्रवचन लाद रहे हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
सत्य अहिंसा फाँक रहे हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
पूँछों से छबि आँक रहे हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
दल से ऊपर, दल के नीचे तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
मुस्काते हैं आँखें मीचे तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
छील रहे गीता की खाल
उपनिषदें हैं इनकी ढाल
उधर सजे मोती के थाल
इधर जमे सतजुगी दलाल
मत पूछो तुम इनका हाल
सर्वोदय के नटवरलाल

मूंड रहे दुनिया-जहान को तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
चिढ़ा रहे हैं आसमान को तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
करें रात-दिन टूर हवाई तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
बदल-बदल कर चखें मलाई तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
गाँधी-छाप झूल डाले हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
असली हैं, सर्कस वाले हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
दिल चटकीला, उजले बाल
नाप चुके हैं गगन विशाल
फूल गए हैं कैसे गाल
मत पूछो तुम इनका हाल
सर्वोदय के नटवरलाल 

हमें अँगूठा दिखा रहे हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
कैसी हिकमत सिखा रहे हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
प्रेम-पगे हैं, शहद-सने हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
गुरुओं के भी गुरु बने हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
सौवीं बरसी मना रहे हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !
बापू को ही बना रहे हैं तीनों बन्दर बापू के !


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उदयप्रकाश -रेख्‍ते में कविता


जैसे कोई हुनरमंद आज भी
घोड़े की नाल बनाता दिख जाता है
ऊंट की खाल की मशक में जैसे कोई भिश्‍ती
आज भी पिलाता है जामा मस्जिद और चांदनी चौक में
प्‍यासों को ठंडा पानी

जैसे अमरकंटक में अब भी बेचता है कोई साधू
मोतियाबिंद के लिए गुल बकावली का अर्क

शर्तिया मर्दानगी बेचता है
हिंदी अखबारों और सस्‍ती पत्रिकाओं में
अपनी मूंछ और पग्‍गड़ के
फोटो वाले विज्ञापन में हकीम बीरूमल आर्यप्रेमी

जैसे पहाड़गंज रेलवे स्‍टेशन के सामने
सड़क की पटरी पर
तोते की चोंच में फंसाकर बांचता है ज्‍योतिषी
किसी बदहवास राहगीर का भविष्‍य
और तुर्कमान गेट के पास गौतम बुद्ध मार्ग पर
ढाका या नेपाल के किसी गांव की लड़की
करती है मोलभाव रोगों, गर्द, नींद और भूख से भरी
अपनी देह का

जैसे कोई गड़रिया रेल की पटरियों पर बैठा
ठीक गोधूलि के समय
भेड़ों को उनके हाल पर छोड़ता हुआ
आज भी बजाता है डूबते सूरज की पृष्‍ठभूमि में
धरती का अंतिम अलगोझा

इत्तिला है मीर इस जमाने में
लिक्‍खे जाता है मेरे जैसा अब भी कोई-कोई
उसी रेख्‍ते में कविता

उदयप्रकाश - एक भाषा हुआ करती है


अब से तकरीबन पचास साल हो गए होंगे
जब कहा जाता है कि गांधी जी ने अपने अनुयायियों से कहीं कहा था
सोचो अपने समाज के आख़िरी आदमी के बारे में
करो जो उसके लिए तुम कर सकते हो
उसका चेहरा हर तुम्हारे कर्म में टंगा होना चाहिए तुम्हारी
आंख के सामने

अगर भविष्य की कोई सत्ता कभी यातना दे उस आख़िरी आदमी को
तो तुम भी वही करना जो मैंने किया है अंग्रेजों के साथ

आज हम सिऱ्फ अनुमान ही लगा सकते हैं कि
यह बात कहां कही गई होगी
किसी प्रार्थना सभा में या किसी राजनीतिक दल की किसी मीटिंग में
या पदयात्रा के दौरान थक कर किसी जगह पर बैठते हुए या
अपने अख़बार में लिखते हुए
लेकिन आज जब अभिलेखों को संरक्षित रखने की तकनीक इतनी विकसित है
हम आसानी से पा सकते हैं उसका संदर्भ
उसकी तारीख और जगह के साथ

बाद में, उन्नीस सौ अड़तालीस की घटना का ब्यौरा
हम सबको पता है

सबसे पहले मारा गया गांधी को
और फिर शुरू हुआ लगातार मारने का सिलसिला

अभी तक हर रोज़ चल रही हैं सुनियोजित गोलियां
हर पल जारी हैं दुरभिसंधियां

पचास साल तक समाज के आख़िरी आदमी की सारी हत्याओं का आंकड़ा कौन छुपा रहा है ?
कौन है जो कविता में रोक रहा है उसका वृत्तांत ?

समकालीन संस्कृति में कहां छुपा है अपराधियों का वह एजेंट ?

रचनाकाल : १६ मार्च २००६

अंशु मालवीय - ...संतानें हत‌‍भागी


जब से भूख तुम्हारी जागी
धरती बिकी
बिकी धरती की संतानें हत‌भागी
पांड़े कौन कुमति तोहे लागी !

धरती के भीतर का लोहा
काढ़ा, हमने तार खिंचाए
तार पे फटी दिहाड़ी लटकी
बिजली की विरुदावलि गाए
जब से भूख तुम्हारी जागी
लोहा बिका
बिकी लोहे की संतानें हतभागी !
पांड़े कौन कुमति तोहे लागी !

धरती के भीतर का पानी
खींचा हमने खेत सधाए
पानी बंधुआ बोतल में
साँस नमी की घुटती जाए
जब से भूख तुम्हारी जागी
पानी बिका
बिकी पानी की संतानें हतभागी
पांड़े कौन कुमति तोहे लागी !

धरती के भीतर का कोयला
खोदा और फ़र्नेस दहकाए
चिमनी ऊपर बैठ के कोयल
कटे हाथ के असगुन गाए
जब्से भूख तुम्हारी जागी
कोयला बिका
बिकी कोयले की संतानें हतभागी
पांड़े कौन कुमति तोहे लागी !

अंशु मालवीय -अकेले ... और ... अछूत /

... हम तुमसे क्या उम्मीद करते
बाम्हन देव!
तुमने तो ख़ुद अपने शरीर के
बायें हिस्से को अछूत बना डाला,
बनाया पैरों को अछूत
रंभाते रहे मां ... मां ... और मां
और मातृत्व रस के
रक्ताभ धब्बों को बना दिया अछूत
हमारे चलने को कहा रेंगना
भाषा को अछूत बना दिया
छंद को, दिशा को
वृक्षों को, पंछियों को
समय को, नदियों को
एक-एक कर सारी सदियों को
बना दिया अछूत
सब कुछ बांटा
किया विघटन में विकास
और अब देखो बाम्हन देव
इतना सब कुछ करते हुए
आज अकेले बचे तुम
अकेले ... और ... अछूत

Muslim 'refused job because of his name' accuses airline bosses of racism



Upset: Salim Zakhrouf was refused an interview by Cathay Pacific
Upset: Salim Zakhrouf was refused an interview by Cathay Pacific
A Muslim airport worker has accused airline Cathay Pacific of racism after he was refused a job interview – only to be offered one when he applied two days later using a fake white British-sounding name. 
Algerian-born Salim Zakhrouf applied to Cathay Pacific for a job as a passenger services officer at Heathrow Airport. 
Mr Zakhrouf, 38, who has lived in Britain since 1991 and is a UK citizen, was told by email he had not been selected for interview. 
But applying 48 hours later as 'Ian Woodhouse' with an identical CV and home address, he was invited for an interview by the same personnel officer who had first refused him. 
A furious Mr Zakhrouf, who has 17 years’ customer-service experience and works as a Heathrow flight handling agent, refused to attend. 
Instead he called his union, Unite, which plans to bring a case accusing Cathay Pacific of racial discrimination to an employment tribunal. 
Within three hours of The Mail on Sunday contacting the airline, Cathay Pacific's UK Head of Marketing Roberto Abbondio called to apologise. 
He blamed an 'administrative error' as staff tried to process 709 applications and said Cathay was reviewing its recruitment process after a case he described as 'unfortunate and disappointing'. 
Cathay Pacific’s UK Personnel Manager Alison Loftin also then emailed Mr Zakhrouf to apologise and to arrange a meeting with her. 
Mr Zakhrouf, who is married with a 19-month-old daughter, told The Mail on Sunday: 
'It’s very strange I only received a proper response when you got in touch.

Notes on Anarchism-Noam Chomsky


"Notes on Anarchism" in For Reasons of State

Noam Chomsky, 1970

Transcribed by rael@ll.mit.edu (Bill Lear)
A French writer, sympathetic to anarchism, wrote in the 1890s that "anarchism has a broad back, like paper it endures anything"---including, he noted those whose acts are such that "a mortal enemy of anarchism could not have done better."[1] There have been many styles of thought and action that have been referred to as "anarchist." It would be hopeless to try to encompass all of these conflicting tendencies in some general theory or ideology. And even if we proceed to extract from the history of libertarian thought a living, evolving tradition, as Daniel Guérin does in Anarchism, it remains difficult to formulate its doctrines as a specific and determinate theory of society and social change. The anarchist historian Rudolph Rocker, who presents a systematic conception of the development of anarchist thought towards anarchosyndicalism, along lines that bear comparison to Guérins work, puts the matter well when he writes that anarchism is not
a fixed, self-enclosed social system but rather a definite trend in the historic development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Even freedom is only a relative, not an absolute concept, since it tends constantly to become broader and to affect wider circles in more manifold ways. For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.[2]
One might ask what value there is in studying a "definite trend in the historic development of mankind" that does not articulate a specific and detailed social theory. Indeed, many commentators dismiss anarchism as utopian, formless, primitive, or otherwise incompatible with the realities of a complex society. One might, however, argue rather differently: that at every stage of history our concern must be to dismantle those forms of authority and oppression that survive from an era when they might have been justified in terms of the need for security or survival or economic development, but that now contribute to---rather than alleviate---material and cultural deficit. If so, there will be no doctrine of social change fixed for the present and future, nor even, necessarily, a specific and unchanging concept of the goals towards which social change should tend. Surely our understanding of the nature of man or of the range of viable social forms is so rudimentary that any far-reaching doctrine must be treated with great skepticism, just as skepticism is in order when we hear that "human nature" or "the demands of efficiency" or "the complexity of modern life" requires this or that form of oppression and autocratic rule.
Nevertheless, at a particular time there is every reason to develop, insofar as our understanding permits, a specific realization of this definite trend in the historic development of mankind, appropriate to the tasks of the moment. For Rocker, "the problem that is set for our time is that of freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement"; and the method is not the conquest and exercise of state power, nor stultifying parliamentarianism, but rather "to reconstruct the economic life of the peoples from the ground up and build it up in the spirit of Socialism."
But only the producers themselves are fitted for this task, since they are the only value-creating element in society out of which a new future can arise. Theirs must be the task of freeing labor from all the fetters which economic exploitation has fastened on it, of freeing society from all the institutions and procedure of political power, and of opening the way to an alliance of free groups of men and women based on co-operative labor and a planned administration of things in the interest of the community. To prepare the toiling masses in the city and country for this great goal and to bind them together as a militant force is the objective of modern Anarcho-syndicalism, and in this its whole purpose is exhausted. [P. 108]
As a socialist, Rocker would take for granted "that the serious, final, complete liberation of the workers is possible only upon one condition: that of the appropriation of capital, that is, of raw material and all the tools of labor, including land, by the whole body of the workers."[3] As an anarchosyndicalist, he insists, further, that the workers' organizations create "not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself" in the prerevolutionary period, that they embody in themselves the structure of the future society---and he looks forward to a social revolution that will dismantle the state apparatus as well as expropriate the expropriators. "What we put in place of the government is industrial organization."
Anarcho-syndicalists are convinced that a Socialist economic order cannot be created by the decrees and statutes of a government, but only by the solidaric collaboration of the workers with hand and brain in each special branch of production; that is, through the taking over of the management of all plants by the producers themselves under such form that the separate groups, plants, and branches of industry are independent members of the general economic organism and systematically carry on production and the distribution of the products in the interest of the community on the basis of free mutual agreements. [p. 94]
Rocker was writing at a moment when such ideas had been put into practice in a dramatic way in the Spanish Revolution. Just prior to the outbreak of the revolution, the anarchosyndicalist economist Diego Abad de Santillan had written:
...in facing the problem of social transformation, the Revolution cannot consider the state as a medium, but must depend on the organization of producers.
We have followed this norm and we find no need for the hypothesis of a superior power to organized labor, in order to establish a new order of things. We would thank anyone to point out to us what function, if any, the State can have in an economic organization, where private property has been abolished and in which parasitism and special privilege have no place. The suppression of the State cannot be a languid affair; it must be the task of the Revolution to finish with the State. Either the Revolution gives social wealth to the producers in which case the producers organize themselves for due collective distribution and the State has nothing to do; or the Revolution does not give social wealth to the producers, in which case the Revolution has been a lie and the State would continue.
Our federal council of economy is not a political power but an economic and administrative regulating power. It receives its orientation from below and operates in accordance with the resolutions of the regional and national assemblies. It is a liaison corps and nothing else.[4]
Engels, in a letter of 1883, expressed his disagreement with this conception as follows:
The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organization of the state....But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries, and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris commune.[5]
In contrast, the anarchists---most eloquently Bakunin---warned of the dangers of the "red bureaucracy," which would prove to be "the most vile and terrible lie that our century has created."[6] The anarchosyndicalist Fernand Pelloutier asked: "Must even the transitory state to which we have to submit necessarily and fatally be a collectivist jail? Can't it consist in a free organization limited exclusively by the needs of production and consumption, all political institutions having disappeared?"[7]
I do not pretend to know the answers to this question. But it seems clear that unless there is, in some form, a positive answer, the chances for a truly democratic revolution that will achieve the humanistic ideals of the left are not great. Martin Buber put the problem succinctly when he wrote: "One cannot in the nature of things expect a little tree that has been turned into a club to put forth leaves."[8] The question of conquest or destruction of state power is what Bakunin regarded as the primary issue dividing him from Marx.[9] In one form or another, the problem has arisen repeatedly in the century since, dividing "libertarian" from "authoritarian" socialists.
Despite Bakunin's warnings about the red bureaucracy, and their fulfillment under Stalin's dictatorship, it would obviously be a gross error in interpreting the debates of a century ago to rely on the claims of contemporary social movements as to their historical origins. In particular, it is perverse to regard Bolshevism as "Marxism in practice." Rather, the left-wing critique of Bolshevism, taking account of the historical circumstances surrounding the Russian Revolution, is far more to the point.[10]
The anti-Bolshevik, left-wing labor movement opposed the Leninists because they did not go far enough in exploiting the Russian upheavals for strictly proletarian ends. They became prisoners of their environment and used the international radical movement to satisfy specifically Russian needs, which soon became synonymous with the needs of the Bolshevik Party-State. The "bourgeois" aspects of the Russian Revolution were now discovered in Bolshevism itself: Leninism was adjudged a part of international social-democracy, differing from the latter only on tactical issues.[11]
If one were to seek a single leading idea within the anarchist tradition, it should, I believe, be that expressed by Bakunin when, in writing on the Paris Commune, he identified himself as follows:
I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J.-J. Rousseau and other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each---an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being---they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.[12]
These ideas grew out of the Enlightenment; their roots are in Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, Humboldt's Limits of State Action, Kant's insistence, in his defense of the French Revolution, that freedom is the precondition for acquiring the maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is achieved. With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social relations are also intolerable. This is clear, for example, from the classic work of Humboldt, The Limits of State Action, which anticipated and perhaps inspired Mill. This classic of liberal thought, completed in 1792, is in its essence profoundly, though prematurely, anticapitalist. Its ideas must be attenuated beyond recognition to be transmuted into an ideology of industrial capitalism.
Humboldt's vision of a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds and labor is freely undertaken suggests the early Marx., with his discussion of the "alienation of labor when work is external to the worker...not part of his nature...[so that] he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself...[and is] physically exhausted and mentally debased," alienated labor that "casts some of the workers back into a barbarous kind of work and turns others into machines," thus depriving man of his "species character" of "free conscious activity" and "productive life." Similarly, Marx conceives of "a new type of human being who needs his fellow men....[The workers' association becomes] the real constructive effort to create the social texture of future human relations."[13] It is true that classical libertarian thought is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty, diversity, and free association. On the same assumptions, capitalist relations of production, wage labor, competitiveness, the ideology of "possessive individualism"---all must be regarded as fundamentally antihuman. Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.
Rudolf Rocker describes modern anarchism as "the confluence of the two great currents which during and since the French revolution have found such characteristic expression in the intellectual life of Europe: Socialism and Liberalism." The classical liberal ideals, he argues, were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economic forms. Anarchism is necessarily anticapitalist in that it "opposes the exploitation of man by man." But anarchism also opposes "the dominion of man over man." It insists that "socialism will be free or it will not be at all. In its recognition of this lies the genuine and profound justification for the existence of anarchism."[14] From this point of view, anarchism may be regarded as the libertarian wing of socialism. It is in this spirit that Daniel Guérin has approached the study of anarchism in Anarchismand other works.[15] Guérin quotes Adolph Fischer, who said that "every anarchist is a socialist but not every socialist is necessarily an anarchist." Similarly Bakunin, in his "anarchist manifesto" of 1865, the program of his projected international revolutionary fraternity, laid down the principle that each member must be, to begin with, a socialist.
A consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production and the wage slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer. As Marx put it, socialists look forward to a society in which labor will "become not only a means of life, but also the highest want in life,"[16] an impossibility when the worker is driven by external authority or need rather than inner impulse: "no form of wage-labor, even though one may be less obnoxious that another, can do away with the misery of wage-labor itself."[17] A consistent anarchist must oppose not only alienated labor but also the stupefying specialization of labor that takes place when the means for developing production
mutilate the worker into a fragment of a human being, degrade him to become a mere appurtenance of the machine, make his work such a torment that its essential meaning is destroyed; estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labor process in very proportion to the extent to which science is incorporated into it as an independent power...[18]
Marx saw this not as an inevitable concomitant of industrialization, but rather as a feature of capitalist relations of production. The society of the future must be concerned to "replace the detail-worker of today...reduced to a mere fragment of a man, by the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labours...to whom the different social functions...are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural powers."[19] The prerequisite is the abolition of capital and wage labor as social categories (not to speak of the industrial armies of the "labor state" or the various modern forms of totalitarianism since capitalism). The reduction of man to an appurtenance of the machine, a specialized tool of production, might in principle be overcome, rather than enhanced, with the proper development and use of technology, but not under the conditions of autocratic control of production by those who make man an instrument to serve their ends, overlooking his individual purposes, in Humboldt's phrase.
Anarchosyndicalists sought, even under capitalism, to create "free associations of free producers" that would engage in militant struggle and prepare to take over the organization of production on a democratic basis. These associations would serve as "a practical school of anarchism."[20] If private ownership of the means of production is, in Proudhon's often quoted phrase, merely a form of "theft"---"the exploitation of the weak by the strong"[21]---control of production by a state bureaucracy, no matter how benevolent its intentions, also does not create the conditions under which labor, manual and intellectual, can become the highest want in life. Both, then, must be overcome.
In his attack on the right of private or bureaucratic control over the means of production,, the anarchist takes his stand with those who struggle to bring about "the third and last emancipatory phase of history," the first having made serfs out of slaves, the second having made wage earners out of serfs, and the third which abolishes the proletariat in a final act of liberation that places control over the economy in the hands of free and voluntary associations of producers (Fourier, 1848).[22] The imminent danger to "civilization" was noted by de Tocqueville, also in 1848:
As long as the right of property was the origin and groundwork of many other rights, it was easily defended---or rather it was not attacked; it was then the citadel of society while all the other rights were its outworks; it did not bear the brunt of attack and, indeed, there was no serious attempt to assail it. but today, when the right of property is regarded as the last undestroyed remnant of the aristocratic world, when it alone is left standing, the sole privilege in an equalized society, it is a different matter. Consider what is happening in the hearts of the working-classes, although I admit they are quiet as yet. It is true that they are less inflamed than formerly by political passions properly speaking; but do you not see that their passions, far from being political, have become social? Do you not see that, little by little, ideas and opinions are spreading amongst them which aim not merely at removing such and such laws, such a ministry or such a government, but at breaking up the very foundations of society itself?[23]
The workers of Paris, in 1871, broke the silence, and proceeded
to abolish property, the basis of all civilization! Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators. It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting labor, into mere instruments of free and associated labor.[24]
The Commune, of course, was drowned in blood. The nature of the "civilization" that the workers of Paris sought to overcome in their attack on "the very foundations of society itself" was revealed, once again, when the troops of the Versailles government reconquered Paris from its population. As Marx wrote, bitterly but accurately:
The civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that order rise against their masters. Then this civilization and justice stand forth as undisguised savagery and lawless revenge...the infernal deeds of the soldiery reflect the innate spirit of that civilization of which they are the mercenary vindicators....The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the destruction of brick and mortar. [Ibid., pp. 74, 77]
Despite the violent destruction of the Commune, Bakunin wrote that Paris opens a new era, "that of the definitive and complete emancipation of the popular masses and their future true solidarity, across and despite state boundaries...the next revolution of man, international in solidarity, will be the resurrection of Paris"---a revolution that the world still awaits.
The consistent anarchist, then, should be a socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and specialized labor and look forward to the appropriation of capital by the whole body of workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some elite force acting in the name of the proletariat. He will, in short, oppose
the organization of production by the Government. It means State-socialism, the command of the State officials over production and the command of managers, scientists, shop-officials in the shop....The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation. This goal is not reached and cannot be reached by a new directing and governing class substituting itself for the bourgeoisie. It is only realized by the workers themselves being master over production.
These remarks are taken from "Five Theses on the Class Struggle" by the left-wing Marxist Anton Pannekoek, one of the outstanding left theorists of the council communist movement. And in fact, radical Marxism merges with anarchist currents.
As a further illustration, consider the following characterization of "revolutionary Socialism":
The revolutionary Socialist denies that State ownership can end in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism. We have seen why the State cannot democratically control industry. Industry can only be democratically owned and controlled by the workers electing directly from their own ranks industrial administrative committees. Socialism will be fundamentally an industrial system; its constituencies will be of an industrial character. Thus those carrying on the social activities and industries of society will be directly represented in the local and central councils of social administration. In this way the powers of such delegates will flow upwards from those carrying on the work and conversant with the needs of the community. When the central administrative industrial committee meets it will represent every phase of social activity. Hence the capitalist political or geographical state will be replaced by the industrial administrative committee of Socialism. The transition from the one social system to the other will be the social revolution. The political State throughout history has meant the government of men by ruling classes; the Republic of Socialism will be the government of industry administered on behalf of the whole community. The former meant the economic and political subjection of the many; the latter will mean the economic freedom of all---it will be, therefore, a true democracy.
This programmatic statement appears in William Paul's The State, its Origins and Functions, written in early 1917---shortly before Lenin's State and Revolution, perhaps his most libertarian work (see note 9). Paul was a member of the Marxist-De Leonist Socialist Labor Party and later one of the founders of the British Communist Party.[25] His critique of state socialism resembles the libertarian doctrine of the anarchists in its principle that since state ownership and management will lead to bureaucratic despotism, the social revolution must replace it by the industrial organization of society with direct workers' control. Many similar statements can be cited.
What is far more important is that these ideas have been realized in spontaneous revolutionary action, for example in Germany and Italy after World War I and in Spain (not only in the agricultural countryside, but also in industrial Barcelona) in 1936. One might argue that some form of council communism is the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society. It reflects the intuitive understanding that democracy is severely limited when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers and technocrats, a "vanguard" party, or a state bureaucracy. Under these conditions of authoritarian domination the classical libertarian ideals developed further by Marx and Bakunin and all true revolutionaries cannot be realized; man will not be free to develop his own potentialities to their fullest, and the producer will remain "a fragment of a human being," degraded, a tool in the productive process directed from above.
The phrase "spontaneous revolutionary action" can be misleading. The anarchosyndicalists, at least, took very seriously Bakunin's remark that the workers' organizations must create "not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself" in the prerevolutionary period. The accomplishments of the popular revolution in Spain, in particular, were based on the patient work of many years of organization and education, one component of a long tradition of commitment and militancy. The resolutions of the Madrid Congress of June 1931 and the Saragossa Congress in May 1936 foreshadowed in many ways the acts of the revolution, as did the somewhat different ideas sketched by Santillan (see note 4) in his fairly specific account of the social and economic organization to be instituted by the revolution. Guérin writes "The Spanish revolution was relatively mature in the minds of libertarian thinkers, as in the popular consciousness." And workers' organizations existed with the structure, the experience, and the understanding to undertake the task of social reconstruction when, with the Franco coup, the turmoil of early 1936 exploded into social revolution. In his introduction to a collection of documents on collectivization in Spain, the anarchist Augustin Souchy writes:
For many years, the anarchists and the syndicalists of Spain considered their supreme task to be the social transformation of the society. In their assemblies of Syndicates and groups, in their journals, their brochures and books, the problem of the social revolution was discussed incessantly and in a systematic fashion.[26]
All of this lies behind the spontaneous achievements, the constructive work of the Spanish Revolution.
The ideas of libertarian socialism, in the sense described, have been submerged in the industrial societies of the past half-century. The dominant ideologies have been those of state socialism or state capitalism (of increasingly militarized character in the United States, for reasons that are not obscure).[27] But there has been a rekindling of interest in the past few years. The theses I quoted by Anton Pannekoek were taken from a recent pamphlet of a radical French workers' group (Informations Correspondance Ouvrière). The remarks by William Paul on revolutionary socialism are cited in a paper by Walter Kendall given at the National Conference on Workers' Control in Sheffield, England, in March 1969. The workers' control movement has become a significant force in England in the past few years. It has organized several conferences and has produced a substantial pamphlet literature, and counts among its active adherents representatives of some of the most important trade unions. The Amalgamated Engineering and Foundryworkers' Union, for example, has adopted, as official policy, the program of nationalization of basic industries under "workers' control at all levels."[28] On the Continent, there are similar developments. May 1968 of course accelerated the growing interest in council communism and related ideas in France and Germany, as it did in England.
Given the highly conservative cast of our highly ideological society, it is not too surprising that the United States has been relatively untouched by these developments. But that too may change. The erosion of cold-war mythology at least makes it possible to raise these questions in fairly broad circles. If the present wave of repression can be beaten back, if the left can overcome its more suicidal tendencies and build upon what has been accomplished in the past decade, then the problem of how to organize industrial society on truly democratic lines, with democratic control in the workplace and in the community, should become a dominant intellectual issue for those who are alive to the problems of contemporary society, and, as a mass movement for libertarian socialism develops, speculation should proceed to action.
In his manifesto of 1865, Bakunin predicted that one element in the social revolution will be "that intelligent and truly noble part of youth which, though belonging by birth to the privileged classes, in its generous convictions and ardent aspirations, adopts the cause of the people." Perhaps in the rise of the student movement of the 1960s one sees steps towards a fulfillment of this prophecy.
Daniel Guérin has undertaken what he has described as a "process of rehabilitation" of anarchism. He argues, convincingly I believe, that "the constructive ideas of anarchism retain their vitality, that they may, when re-examined and sifted, assist contemporary socialist thought to undertake a new departure...[and] contribute to enriching Marxism."[29]
From the "broad back" of anarchism he has selected for more intensive scrutiny those ideas and actions that can be described as libertarian socialist. This is natural and proper. This framework accommodates the major anarchist spokesmen as well as the mass actions that have been animated by anarchist sentiments and ideals. Guérin is concerned not only with anarchist thought but also with the spontaneous actions of popular revolutionary struggle. He is concerned with social as well as intellectual creativity. Furthermore, he attempts to draw from the constructive achievements of the past lessons that will enrich the theory of social liberation. For those who wish not only to understand the world, but also to change it, this is the proper way to study the history of anarchism.
Guérin describes the anarchism of the nineteenth century as essentially doctrinal, while the twentieth century, for the anarchists, has been a time of "revolutionary practice."[30] Anarchism reflects that judgment. His interpretation of anarchism consciously points toward the future. Arthur Rosenberg once pointed out that popular revolutions characteristically seek to replace "a feudal or centralized authority ruling by force" with some form of communal system which "implies the destruction and disappearance of the old form of State." Such a system will be either socialist or an "extreme form of democracy...[which is] the preliminary condition for Socialism inasmuch as Socialism can only be realized in a world enjoying the highest possible measure of individual freedom." This ideal, he notes, was common to Marx and the anarchists.[31] This natural struggle for liberation runs counter to the prevailing tendency towards centralization in economic and political life.
A century ago Marx wrote that the workers of Paris "felt there was but one alternative---the Commune, or the empire---under whatever name it might reappear."
The empire had ruined them economically by the havoc it made of public wealth, by the wholesale financial swindling it fostered, by the props it lent to the artificially accelerated centralization of capital, and the concomitant expropriation of their own ranks. It had suppressed them politically, it had shocked them morally by its orgies, it had insulted their Voltairianism by handing over the education of their children to the frères Ignorantins, it had revolted their national feeling as Frenchmen by precipitating them headlong into a war which left only one equivalent for the ruins it made---the disappearance of the empire.[32]
The miserable Second Empire "was the only form of government possible at a time when the bourgeoisie had already lost, and the working class had not yet acquired, the faculty of ruling the nation."
It is not very difficult to rephrase these remarks so that they become appropriate to the imperial systems of 1970. The problem of "freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement" remains the problem of our time. As long as this is so, the doctrines and the revolutionary practice of libertarian socialism will serve as an inspiration and guide.

******************NOTES***************

This essay is a revised version of the introduction to Daniel Guérin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. In a slightly different version, it appeared in the New York Review of Books, May 21, 1970.
[1] Octave Mirbeau, quoted in James Joll, The Anarchists, pp. 145--6.
[2] Rudolf Rocker, Anarchosyndicalism, p. 31.
[3] Cited by Rocker, ibid., p. 77. This quotation and that in the next sentence are from Michael Bakunin, "The Program of the Alliance," in Sam Dolgoff, ed. and trans., Bakunin on Anarchy, p. 255.
[4] Diego Abad de Santillan, After the Revolution, p. 86. In the last chapter, written several months after the revolution had begun, he expresses his dissatisfaction with what had so far been achieved along these lines. On the accomplishments of the social revolution in Spain, see my American Power and the New Mandarins, chap. 1, and references cited there; the important study by Broué and Témime has since been translated into English. Several other important studies have appeared since, in particular: Frank Mintz, L'Autogestion dans l'Espagne révolutionaire (Paris: Editions Bélibaste, 1971); César M. Lorenzo, Les Anarchistes espagnols et le pouvoir, 1868--1969 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1969); Gaston Leval, Espagne libertaire, 1936--1939: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole(Paris: Editions du Cercle, 1971). See also Vernon Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, enlarged 1972 edition.
[5] Cited by Robert C. Tucker, The Marxian Revolutionary Idea, in his discussion of Marxism and anarchism.
[6] Bakunin, in a letter to Herzen and Ogareff, 1866. Cited by Daniel Guérin, Jeunesse du socialisme libertaire, p. 119.
[7] Fernand Pelloutier, cited in Joll, Anarchists. The source is "L'Anarchisme et les syndicats ouvriers," Les Temps nouveaux, 1895. The full text appears in Daniel Guérin, ed., Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, an excellent historical anthology of anarchism.
[8] Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia, p. 127.
[9] "No state, however democratic," Bakunin wrote, "not even the reddest republic---can ever give the people what they really want, i.e., the free self-organization and administration of their own affairs from the bottom upward, without any interference or violence from above, because every state, even the pseudo-People's State concocted by Mr. Marx, is in essence only a machine ruling the masses from above, from a privileged minority of conceited intellectuals, who imagine that they know what the people need and want better than do the people themselves...." "But the people will feel no better if the stick with which they are being beaten is labeled 'the people's stick' " (Statism and Anarchy [1873], in Dolgoff, Bakunin on Anarchy, p. 338)---"the people's stick" being the democratic Republic.
Marx, of course, saw the matter differently.
For discussion of the impact of the Paris Commune on this dispute, see Daniel Guérin's comments in Ni Dieu, ni Maítre; these also appear, slightly extended, in hisPour un marxisme libertaire. See also note 24.
[10] On Lenin's "intellectual deviation" to the left during 1917, see Robert Vincent Daniels, "The State and Revolution: a Case Study in the Genesis and Transformation of Communist Ideology," American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (1953).
[11] Paul Mattick, Marx and Keynes, p. 295.
[12] Michael Bakunin, "La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'état," reprinted in Guérin, Ni Dieu, ni Maítre. Bakunin's final remark on the laws of individual nature as the condition of freedom can be compared to the creative thought developed in the rationalist and romantic traditions. See my Cartesian Linguistics and Language and Mind.
[13] Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, p. 142, referring to comments in The Holy Family. Avineri states that within the socialist movement only the Israeli kibbutzim "have perceived that the modes and forms of present social organization will determine the structure of future society." This, however, was a characteristic position of anarchosyndicalism, as noted earlier.
[14] Rocker, Anarchosyndicalism, p. 28.
[15] See Guérin's works cited earlier.
[16] Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme.
[17] Karl Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie, cited by Mattick, Marx and Keynes, p. 306. In this connection, see also Mattick's essay "Workers' Control," in Priscilla Long, ed., The New Left; and Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx.
[18] Karl Marx, Capital, quoted by Robert Tucker, who rightly emphasizes that Marx sees the revolutionary more as a "frustrated producer" than a "dissatisfied consumer" (The Marxian Revolutionary Idea). This more radical critique of capitalist relations of production is a direct outgrowth of the libertarian thought of the Enlightenment.
[19] Marx, Capital, cited by Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx, p. 83.
[20] Pelloutier, "L'Anarchisme."
[21] "Qu'est-ce que la propriété?" The phrase "property is theft" displeased Marx, who saw in its use a logical problem, theft presupposing the legitimate existence of property. See Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx.
[22] Cited in Buber's Paths in Utopia, p. 19.
[23] Cited in J. Hampden Jackson, Marx, Proudhon and European Socialism, p. 60.
[24] Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, p. 24. Avineri observes that this and other comments of Marx about the Commune refer pointedly to intentions and plans. As Marx made plain elsewhere, his considered assessment was more critical than in this address.
[25] For some background, see Walter Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain.
[26] Collectivisations: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole, p. 8.
[27] For discussion, see Mattick, Marx and Keynes, and Michael Kidron, Western Capitalism Since the War. See also discussion and references cited in my At War With Asia, chap. 1, pp. 23--6.
[28] See Hugh Scanlon, The Way Forward for Workers' Control. Scanlon is the president of the AEF, one of Britain's largest trade unions. The institute was established as a result of the sixth Conference on Workers' Control, March 1968, and serves as a center for disseminating information and encouraging research.
[29] Guérin, Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, introduction.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Arthur Rosenberg, A History of Bolshevism, p. 88.
[32] Marx, Civil War in France, pp. 62--3.

*************BIBLIOGRAPHY*************

Avineri, Shlomo. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. London: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Bakunin, Michael. Bakunin on Anarchy. Edited and translated by Sam Dolgoff. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.
Buber, Martin. Paths in Utopia. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.
Chomsky, Noam. Cartesian Linguistics. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
------. American Power and the New Mandarins. New York: Pantheon Books, 1969.
------. At War with Asia. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970.
Collectivisations: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole. 2nd ed. Toulouse: Editions C.N.T., 1965. First edition, Barcelona, 1937.
Daniels, Robert Vincent. "The State and Revolution: a Case Study in the Genesis and Transformation of Communist Ideology." American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (1953).
Guérin, Daniel. Jeunesse du socialisme libertaire. Paris: Librairie Marcel Rivière, 1959.
------. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, translated by Mary Klopper. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970.
------. Pour un marxisme libertaire. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1969.
------, ed. Ni Dieu, ni Maítre. Lausanne: La Cité Editeur, n.d.
Jackson, J. Hampden. Marx, Proudhon and European Socialism. New York: Collier Books, 1962.
Joll, James. The Anarchists. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1964.
Kendall, Walter. The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900--1921. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.
Kidron, Michael Western Capitalism Since the War. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968.
Mattick, Paul. Marx and Keynes: The Limits of Mixed Economy. Extending Horizons Series. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969.
------. "Workers' Control." In The New Left: A Collection of Essays, edited by Priscilla Long. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969.
Marx, Karl. The Civil War in France, 1871. New York: International Publishers, 1941.
Pelloutier, Fernand. "L'Anarchisme et les syndicats ouvriers." Les Temps nouveaux, 1895. Reprinted in Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, edited by Daniel Guérin. Lausanne: La Cité Editeur, n.d.
Richards, Vernon. Lessons of the Spanish Revolution (1936--1939). Enlarged ed. London: Freedom Press, 1972.
Rocker, Rudolf. Anarchosyndicalism. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938.
Rosenberg, Arthur. A History of Bolshevism from Marx to the First Five Years' Plan. Translated by Ian F. Morrow. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965.
Santillan, Diego Abad de. After the Revolution. New York: Greenberg Publishers, 1937.
Scanlon, Hugh. The Way Forward for Workers' Control. Institute for Workers' Control Pamphlet Series, no. 1, Nottingham, England, 1968.

Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Marxism & Hope for the Future


Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Marxism & Hope for the Future



Noam Chomsky is widely known for his critique of U.S foreign policy, and for his work as a linguist. Less well known is his ongoing support for libertarian socialist objectives. In a special interview done for Red and Black Revolution, Chomsky gives his views on anarchism and marxism, and the prospects for socialism now. The interview was conducted in May 1995 by Kevin Doyle.
RBR: First off, Noam, for quite a time now you've been an advocate for the anarchist idea. Many people are familiar with the introduction you wrote in 1970 to Daniel Guerin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, but more recently, for instance in the film Manufacturing Dissent, you took the opportunity to highlight again the potential of anarchism and the anarchist idea. What is it that attracts you to anarchism?
CHOMSKY: I was attracted to anarchism as a young teenager, as soon as I began to think about the world beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven't seen much reason to revise those early attitudes since. I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom. That includes political power, ownership and management, relations among men and women, parents and children, our control over the fate of future generations (the basic moral imperative behind the environmental movement, in my view), and much else. Naturally this means a challenge to the huge institutions of coercion and control: the state, the unaccountable private tyrannies that control most of the domestic and international economy, and so on. But not only these. That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met. Sometimes the burden can be met. If I'm taking a walk with my grandchildren and they dart out into a busy street, I will use not only authority but also physical coercion to stop them. The act should be challenged, but I think it can readily meet the challenge. And there are other cases; life is a complex affair, we understand very little about humans and society, and grand pronouncements are generally more a source of harm than of benefit. But the perspective is a valid one, I think, and can lead us quite a long way.
Beyond such generalities, we begin to look at cases, which is where the questions of human interest and concern arise.

Anarchist banner

RBR: It's true to say that your ideas and critique are now more widely known than ever before. It should also be said that your views are widely respected. How do you think your support for anarchism is received in this context? In particular, I'm interested in the response you receive from people who are getting interested in politics for the first time and who may, perhaps, have come across your views. Are such people surprised by your support for anarchism? Are they interested?
CHOMSKY: The general intellectual culture, as you know, associates 'anarchism' with chaos, violence, bombs, disruption, and so on. So people are often surprised when I speak positively of anarchism and identify myself with leading traditions within it. But my impression is that among the general public, the basic ideas seem reasonable when the clouds are cleared away. Of course, when we turn to specific matters - say, the nature of families, or how an economy would work in a society that is more free and just - questions and controversy arise. But that is as it should be. Physics can't really explain how water flows from the tap in your sink. When we turn to vastly more complex questions of human significance, understanding is very thin, and there is plenty of room for disagreement, experimentation, both intellectual and real-life exploration of possibilities, to help us learn more.
RBR: Perhaps, more than any other idea, anarchism has suffered from the problem of misrepresentation. Anarchism can mean many things to many people. Do you often find yourself having to explain what it is that you mean by anarchism? Does the misrepresentation of anarchism bother you?
CHOMSKY: All misrepresentation is a nuisance. Much of it can be traced back to structures of power that have an interest in preventing understanding, for pretty obvious reasons. It's well to recall David Hume's Principles of Government. He expressed surprise that people ever submitted to their rulers. He concluded that sinceForce is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. 'Tis therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. Hume was very astute - and incidentally, hardly a libertarian by the standards of the day. He surely underestimates the efficacy of force, but his observation seems to me basically correct, and important, particularly in the more free societies, where the art of controlling opinion is therefore far more refined. Misrepresentation and other forms of befuddlement are a natural concomitant.
So does misrepresentation bother me? Sure, but so does rotten weather. It will exist as long as concentrations of power engender a kind of commissar class to defend them. Since they are usually not very bright, or are bright enough to know that they'd better avoid the arena of fact and argument, they'll turn to misrepresentation, vilification, and other devices that are available to those who know that they'll be protected by the various means available to the powerful. We should understand why all this occurs, and unravel it as best we can. That's part of the project of liberation - of ourselves and others, or more reasonably, of people working together to achieve these aims.
Sounds simple-minded, and it is. But I have yet to find much commentary on human life and society that is not simple-minded, when absurdity and self-serving posturing are cleared away.
RBR: How about in more established left-wing circles, where one might expect to find greater familiarity with what anarchism actually stands for? Do you encounter any surprise here at your views and support for anarchism?
CHOMSKY: If I understand what you mean by established left-wing circles, there is not too much surprise about my views on anarchism, because very little is known about my views on anything. These are not the circles I deal with. You'll rarely find a reference to anything I say or write. That's not completely true of course. Thus in the US (but less commonly in the UK or elsewhere), you'd find some familiarity with what I do in certain of the more critical and independent sectors of what might be called established left-wing circles, and I have personal friends and associates scattered here and there. But have a look at the books and journals, and you'll see what I mean. I don't expect what I write and say to be any more welcome in these circles than in the faculty club or editorial board room - again, with exceptions.
The question arises only marginally, so much so that it's hard to answer.
RBR: A number of people have noted that you use the term 'libertarian socialist' in the same context as you use the word 'anarchism'. Do you see these terms as essentially similar? Is anarchism a type of socialism to you? The description has been used before that anarchism is equivalent to socialism with freedom. Would you agree with this basic equation?
CHOMSKY: The introduction to Guerin's book that you mentioned opens with a quote from an anarchist sympathiser a century ago, who says that anarchism has a broad back, and endures anything. One major element has been what has traditionally been called 'libertarian socialism'. I've tried to explain there and elsewhere what I mean by that, stressing that it's hardly original; I'm taking the ideas from leading figures in the anarchist movement whom I quote, and who rather consistently describe themselves as socialists, while harshly condemning the 'new class' of radical intellectuals who seek to attain state power in the course of popular struggle and to become the vicious Red bureaucracy of which Bakunin warned; what's often called 'socialism'. I rather agree with Rudolf Rocker's perception that these (quite central) tendencies in anarchism draw from the best of Enlightenment and classical liberal thought, well beyond what he described. In fact, as I've tried to show they contrast sharply with Marxist-Leninist doctrine and practice, the 'libertarian' doctrines that are fashionable in the US and UK particularly, and other contemporary ideologies, all of which seem to me to reduce to advocacy of one or another form of illegitimate authority, quite often real tyranny.

The Spanish Revolution

RBR: In the past, when you have spoken about anarchism, you have often emphasised the example of the Spanish Revolution. For you there would seem to be two aspects to this example. On the one hand, the experience of the Spanish Revolution is, you say, a good example of 'anarchism in action'. On the other, you have also stressed that the Spanish revolution is a good example of what workers can achieve through their own efforts using participatory democracy. Are these two aspects - anarchism in action and participatory democracy - one and the same thing for you? Is anarchism a philosophy for people's power?
CHOMSKY: I'm reluctant to use fancy polysyllables like philosophy to refer to what seems ordinary common sense. And I'm also uncomfortable with slogans. The achievements of Spanish workers and peasants, before the revolution was crushed, were impressive in many ways. The term 'participatory democracy' is a more recent one, which developed in a different context, but there surely are points of similarity. I'm sorry if this seems evasive. It is, but that's because I don't think either the concept of anarchism or of participatory democracy is clear enough to be able to answer the question whether they are the same.
RBR: One of the main achievements of the Spanish Revolution was the degree of grassroots democracy established. In terms of people, it is estimated that over 3 million were involved. Rural and urban production was managed by workers themselves. Is it a coincidence to your mind that anarchists, known for their advocacy of individual freedom, succeeded in this area of collective administration?
CHOMSKY: No coincidence at all. The tendencies in anarchism that I've always found most persuasive seek a highly organised society, integrating many different kinds of structures (workplace, community, and manifold other forms of voluntary association), but controlled by participants, not by those in a position to give orders (except, again, when authority can be justified, as is sometimes the case, in specific contingencies).

Spanish revolution


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Democracy

RBR: Anarchists often expend a great deal of effort at building up grassroots democracy. Indeed they are often accused of taking democracy to extremes. Yet, despite this, many anarchists would not readily identify democracy as a central component of anarchist philosophy. Anarchists often describe their politics as being about 'socialism' or being about 'the individual'- they are less likely to say that anarchism is about democracy. Would you agree that democratic ideas are a central feature of anarchism?
CHOMSKY: Criticism of 'democracy' among anarchists has often been criticism of parliamentary democracy, as it has arisen within societies with deeply repressive features. Take the US, which has been as free as any, since its origins. American democracy was founded on the principle, stressed by James Madison in the Constitutional Convention in 1787, that the primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority. Thus he warned that in England, the only quasi-democratic model of the day, if the general population were allowed a say in public affairs, they would implement agrarian reform or other atrocities, and that the American system must be carefully crafted to avoid such crimes against the rights of property, which must be defended (in fact, must prevail). Parliamentary democracy within this framework does merit sharp criticism by genuine libertarians, and I've left out many other features that are hardly subtle - slavery, to mention just one, or the wage slavery that was bitterly condemned by working people who had never heard of anarchism or communism right through the 19th century, and beyond.

Leninism

RBR: The importance of grassroots democracy to any meaningful change in society would seem to be self evident. Yet the left has been ambiguous about this in the past. I'm speaking generally, of social democracy, but also of Bolshevism - traditions on the left that would seem to have more in common with elitist thinking than with strict democratic practice. Lenin, to use a well-known example, was sceptical that workers could develop anything more than trade union consciousness- by which, I assume, he meant that workers could not see far beyond their immediate predicament. Similarly, the Fabian socialist, Beatrice Webb, who was very influential in the Labour Party in England, had the view that workers were only interested in horse racing odds! Where does this elitism originate and what is it doing on the left?
CHOMSKY: I'm afraid it's hard for me to answer this. If the left is understood to include 'Bolshevism,' then I would flatly dissociate myself from the left. Lenin was one of the greatest enemies of socialism, in my opinion, for reasons I've discussed. The idea that workers are only interested in horse-racing is an absurdity that cannot withstand even a superficial look at labour history or the lively and independent working class press that flourished in many places, including the manufacturing towns of New England not many miles from where I'm writing - not to speak of the inspiring record of the courageous struggles of persecuted and oppressed people throughout history, until this very moment. Take the most miserable corner of this hemisphere, Haiti, regarded by the European conquerors as a paradise and the source of no small part of Europe's wealth, now devastated, perhaps beyond recovery. In the past few years, under conditions so miserable that few people in the rich countries can imagine them, peasants and slum-dwellers constructed a popular democratic movement based on grassroots organisations that surpasses just about anything I know of elsewhere; only deeply committed commissars could fail to collapse with ridicule when they hear the solemn pronouncements of American intellectuals and political leaders about how the US has to teach Haitians the lessons of democracy. Their achievements were so substantial and frightening to the powerful that they had to be subjected to yet another dose of vicious terror, with considerably more US support than is publicly acknowledged, and they still have not surrendered. Are they interested only in horse-racing?
I'd suggest some lines I've occasionally quoted from Rousseau: when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behoove slaves to reason about freedom.
RBR: Speaking generally again, your own work - Deterring DemocracyNecessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, etc. - has dealt consistently with the role and prevalence of elitist ideas in societies such as our own. You have argued that within 'Western' (or parliamentary) democracy there is a deep antagonism to any real role or input from the mass of people, lest it threaten the uneven distribution in wealth which favours the rich. Your work is quite convincing here, but, this aside, some have been shocked by your assertions. For instance, you compare the politics of President John F. Kennedy with Lenin, more or less equating the two. This, I might add, has shocked supporters of both camps! Can you elaborate a little on the validity of the comparison?
CHOMSKY: I haven't actually equated the doctrines of the liberal intellectuals of the Kennedy administration with Leninists, but I have noted striking points of similarity - rather as predicted by Bakunin a century earlier in his perceptive commentary on the new class. For example, I quoted passages from McNamara on the need to enhance managerial control if we are to be truly free, and about how the undermanagement that is the real threat to democracy is an assault against reason itself. Change a few words in these passages, and we have standard Leninist doctrine. I've argued that the roots are rather deep, in both cases. Without further clarification about what people find shocking, I can't comment further. The comparisons are specific, and I think both proper and properly qualified. If not, that's an error, and I'd be interested to be enlightened about it.


Red and Black Ireland

News of Anarchism in Ireland

The Ainriail mailing list carries the latest news from the WSM and the struggles anarchists are involved in. There arenever more then 8 posts a week (and normally only 2-4).

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Marxism

RBR: Specifically, Leninism refers to a form of marxism that developed with V.I. Lenin. Are you implicitly distinguishing the works of Marx from the particular criticism you have of Lenin when you use the term 'Leninism'? Do you see a continuity between Marx's views and Lenin's later practices?
CHOMSKY: Bakunin's warnings about the Red bureaucracy that would institute the worst of all despotic governments were long before Lenin, and were directed against the followers of Mr. Marx. There were, in fact, followers of many different kinds; Pannekoek, Luxembourg, Mattick and others are very far from Lenin, and their views often converge with elements of anarcho-syndicalism. Korsch and others wrote sympathetically of the anarchist revolution in Spain, in fact. There are continuities from Marx to Lenin, but there are also continuities to Marxists who were harshly critical of Lenin and Bolshevism. Teodor Shanin's work in the past years on Marx's later attitudes towards peasant revolution is also relevant here. I'm far from being a Marx scholar, and wouldn't venture any serious judgement on which of these continuities reflects the 'real Marx,' if there even can be an answer to that question.
RBR: Recently, we obtained a copy of your own Notes on Anarchism (re-published last year by Discussion Bulletin in the USA). In this you mention the views of theearly Marx, in particular his development of the idea of alienation under capitalism. Do you generally agree with this division in Marx's life and work - a young, more libertarian socialist but, in later years, a firm authoritarian?
CHOMSKY: The early Marx draws extensively from the milieu in which he lived, and one finds many similarities to the thinking that animated classical liberalism, aspects of the Enlightenment and French and German Romanticism. Again, I'm not enough of a Marx scholar to pretend to an authoritative judgement. My impression, for what it is worth, is that the early Marx was very much a figure of the late Enlightenment, and the later Marx was a highly authoritarian activist, and a critical analyst of capitalism, who had little to say about socialist alternatives. But those are impressions.
RBR: From my understanding, the core part of your overall view is informed by your concept of human nature. In the past the idea of human nature was seen, perhaps, as something regressive, even limiting. For instance, the unchanging aspect of human nature is often used as an argument for why things can't be changed fundamentally in the direction of anarchism. You take a different view? Why?
CHOMSKY: The core part of anyone's point of view is some concept of human nature, however it may be remote from awareness or lack articulation. At least, that is true of people who consider themselves moral agents, not monsters. Monsters aside, whether a person who advocates reform or revolution, or stability or return to earlier stages, or simply cultivating one's own garden, takes stand on the grounds that it is 'good for people.' But that judgement is based on some conception of human nature, which a reasonable person will try to make as clear as possible, if only so that it can be evaluated. So in this respect I'm no different from anyone else.
You're right that human nature has been seen as something 'regressive,' but that must be the result of profound confusion. Is my granddaughter no different from a rock, a salamander, a chicken, a monkey? A person who dismisses this absurdity as absurd recognises that there is a distinctive human nature. We are left only with the question of what it is - a highly nontrivial and fascinating question, with enormous scientific interest and human significance. We know a fair amount about certain aspects of it - not those of major human significance. Beyond that, we are left with our hopes and wishes, intuitions and speculations.
There is nothing regressive about the fact that a human embryo is so constrained that it does not grow wings, or that its visual system cannot function in the manner of an insect, or that it lacks the homing instinct of pigeons. The same factors that constrain the organism's development also enable it to attain a rich, complex, and highly articulated structure, similar in fundamental ways to conspecifics, with rich and remarkable capacities. An organism that lacked such determinative intrinsic structure, which of course radically limits the paths of development, would be some kind of amoeboid creature, to be pitied (even if it could survive somehow). The scope and limits of development are logically related.
Take language, one of the few distinctive human capacities about which much is known. We have very strong reasons to believe that all possible human languages are very similar; a Martian scientist observing humans might conclude that there is just a single language, with minor variants. The reason is that the particular aspect of human nature that underlies the growth of language allows very restricted options. Is this limiting? Of course. Is it liberating? Also of course. It is these very restrictions that make it possible for a rich and intricate system of expression of thought to develop in similar ways on the basis of very rudimentary, scattered, and varied experience.
What about the matter of biologically-determined human differences? That these exist is surely true, and a cause for joy, not fear or regret. Life among clones would not be worth living, and a sane person will only rejoice that others have abilities that they do not share. That should be elementary. What is commonly believed about these matters is strange indeed, in my opinion.
Is human nature, whatever it is, conducive to the development of anarchist forms of life or a barrier to them? We do not know enough to answer, one way or the other. These are matters for experimentation and discovery, not empty pronouncements.

The future

RBR: To begin finishing off, I'd like to ask you briefly about some current issues on the left. I don't know if the situation is similar in the USA but here, with the fall of the Soviet Union, a certain demoralisation has set in on the left. It isn't so much that people were dear supporters of what existed in the Soviet Union, but rather it's a general feeling that with the demise of the Soviet Union the idea of socialism has also been dragged down. Have you come across this type of demoralisation? What's your response to it?
CHOMSKY: My response to the end of Soviet tyranny was similar to my reaction to the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini. In all cases, it is a victory for the human spirit. It should have been particularly welcome to socialists, since a great enemy of socialism had at last collapsed. Like you, I was intrigued to see how people - including people who had considered themselves anti-Stalinist and anti-Leninist - were demoralised by the collapse of the tyranny. What it reveals is that they were more deeply committed to Leninism than they believed.
There are, however, other reasons to be concerned about the elimination of this brutal and tyrannical system, which was as much socialist as it was democratic(recall that it claimed to be both, and that the latter claim was ridiculed in the West, while the former was eagerly accepted, as a weapon against socialism - one of the many examples of the service of Western intellectuals to power). One reason has to do with the nature of the Cold War. In my view, it was in significant measure a special case of the 'North-South conflict,' to use the current euphemism for Europe's conquest of much of the world. Eastern Europe had been the original 'third world,' and the Cold War from 1917 had no slight resemblance to the reaction of attempts by other parts of the third world to pursue an independent course, though in this case differences of scale gave the conflict a life of its own. For this reason, it was only reasonable to expect the region to return pretty much to its earlier status: parts of the West, like the Czech Republic or Western Poland, could be expected to rejoin it, while others revert to the traditional service role, the ex-Nomenklatura becoming the standard third world elite (with the approval of Western state-corporate power, which generally prefers them to alternatives). That was not a pretty prospect, and it has led to immense suffering.
Another reason for concern has to do with the matter of deterrence and non-alignment. Grotesque as the Soviet empire was, its very existence offered a certain space for non-alignment, and for perfectly cynical reasons, it sometimes provided assistance to victims of Western attack. Those options are gone, and the South is suffering the consequences.
A third reason has to do with what the business press calls the pampered Western workers with their luxurious lifestyles. With much of Eastern Europe returning to the fold, owners and managers have powerful new weapons against the working classes and the poor at home. GM and VW can not only transfer production to Mexico and Brazil (or at least threaten to, which often amounts to the same thing), but also to Poland and Hungary, where they can find skilled and trained workers at a fraction of the cost. They are gloating about it, understandably, given the guiding values.
We can learn a lot about what the Cold War (or any other conflict) was about by looking at who is cheering and who is unhappy after it ends. By that criterion, the victors in the Cold War include Western elites and the ex-Nomenklatura, now rich beyond their wildest dreams, and the losers include a substantial part of the population of the East along with working people and the poor in the West, as well as popular sectors in the South that have sought an independent path.
Such ideas tend to arouse near hysteria among Western intellectuals, when they can even perceive them, which is rare. That's easy to show. It's also understandable. The observations are correct, and subversive of power and privilege; hence hysteria.
In general, the reactions of an honest person to the end of the Cold War will be more complex than just pleasure over the collapse of a brutal tyranny, and prevailing reactions are suffused with extreme hypocrisy, in my opinion.

Capitalism

RBR: In many ways the left today finds itself back at its original starting point in the last century. Like then, it now faces a form of capitalism that is in the ascendancy. There would seem to be greater 'consensus' today, more than at any other time in history, that capitalism is the only valid form of economic organisation possible, this despite the fact that wealth inequality is widening. Against this backdrop, one could argue that the left is unsure of how to go forward. How do you look at the current period? Is it a question of 'back to basics'? Should the effort now be towards bringing out the libertarian tradition in socialism and towards stressing democratic ideas?
CHOMSKY: This is mostly propaganda, in my opinion. What is called 'capitalism' is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close co-operation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society. That is dramatically true of the United States, contrary to much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more willing to face market discipline than they have been in the past, though they consider it just fine for the general population. Merely to cite a few illustrations, the Reagan administration, which revelled in free market rhetoric, also boasted to the business community that it was the most protectionist in post-war US history - actually more than all others combined. Newt Gingrich, who leads the current crusade, represents a superrich district that receives more federal subsidies than any other suburban region in the country, outside of the federal system itself. The 'conservatives' who are calling for an end to school lunches for hungry children are also demanding an increase in the budget for the Pentagon, which was established in the late 1940s in its current form because - as the business press was kind enough to tell us - high tech industry cannot survive in a pure, competitive, unsubsidized, 'free enterprise' economy, and the government must be its saviour.Without the saviour, Gingrich's constituents would be poor working people (if they were lucky). There would be no computers, electronics generally, aviation industry, metallurgy, automation, etc., etc., right down the list. Anarchists, of all people, should not be taken in by these traditional frauds.
More than ever, libertarian socialist ideas are relevant, and the population is very much open to them. Despite a huge mass of corporate propaganda, outside of educated circles, people still maintain pretty much their traditional attitudes. In the US, for example, more than 80% of the population regard the economic system asinherently unfair and the political system as a fraud, which serves the special interests, not the people. Overwhelming majorities think working people have too little voice in public affairs (the same is true in England), that the government has the responsibility of assisting people in need, that spending for education and health should take precedence over budget-cutting and tax cuts, that the current Republican proposals that are sailing through Congress benefit the rich and harm the general population, and so on. Intellectuals may tell a different story, but it's not all that difficult to find out the facts.
RBR: To a point anarchist ideas have been vindicated by the collapse of the Soviet Union - the predictions of Bakunin have proven to be correct. Do you think that anarchists should take heart from this general development and from the perceptiveness of Bakunin's analysis? Should anarchists look to the period ahead with greater confidence in their ideas and history?
CHOMSKY: I think - at least hope - that the answer is implicit in the above. I think the current era has ominous portent, and signs of great hope. Which result ensues depends on what we make of the opportunities.
RBR: Lastly, Noam, a different sort of question. We have a pint of Guinness on order for you here. When are you going to come and drink it?
CHOMSKY: Keep the Guinness ready. I hope it won't be too long. Less jocularly, I'd be there tomorrow if we could. We (my wife came along with me, unusual for these constant trips) had a marvellous time in Ireland, and would love to come back. Why don't we? Won't bore you with the sordid details, but demands are extraordinary, and mounting - a reflection of the conditions I've been trying to describe.

Chomsky visited Dublin in early 2006 and spoke at a meeting organised by the WSM, Google video footage of this is below